


The Phoenix and the Flame

by cecilantro



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Multi, Original Universe AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-18
Updated: 2018-08-18
Packaged: 2019-06-28 23:27:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 48,688
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15717276
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cecilantro/pseuds/cecilantro
Summary: It's just meant to be a journey of convenience across kingdoms, little bands of adventurers moving as a pack to ward off threats.None of them had ever expected to care about their new companions. None of them expected to give up all of the things they'd set out to do.None of them expected to die.And none of them had expected the phoenix from the ashes, bringing them a new life as their old ones turn to dust behind them.





	The Phoenix and the Flame

**Author's Note:**

> MEOWDY!!!  
> So this is set in my own universe, where there's 5 main types of Elemental magic- Earth, Fire, Water, Air, and Spirit. There's a sixth, universal type called Clanless that anyone can learn to use, and a bunch of sub-classes under each element but you only need to know the basics.
> 
> Healing falls under clanless. Flash stepping falls under clanless. Those are the important bits.
> 
> Additionally, like most places, Blood magic is considered inherently evil, since its only real known use is to hurt people. Molly is a Blood Mage, and hides that.
> 
> COOL!!! GoodBye
> 
> (Also- drug/alcohol use in this fic later on, read w/ some caution friends. they get high with some demigods.)

“I don’t have any magic.”

The lie drops easily from Molly’s lips. It’s one that he’s perfected, easy, he follows it with a grin,

“Unless you think Tarot reading is magic.”

“It is.” Caleb replies idly, without looking up, “Fate and fortune and other kinds of divination fall under the Clanless category of magic. Have you not read the studies?”

Molly scoffs,

“Do I _look_ like I can read?”

“Naw,” It’s Beau that answers, “Y’also don’t look like you’ve ever seen a healer. All those scars- what happened, were y’ tortured?”  
  
Molly goes still and quiet and Jester smacks her arm,

“Beau!” She chastises, and blinks- there’s a faint glow of pink magic as she locks her eyes on Molly, “You can’t say those things to people! What if they’re traumatic memories?”  
She frowns at the word memories, focuses harder on Molly, her eyes glow a more vivid pink as she loses her will to be stealthy. Molly’s silence splits his face into a grin.

“ _What if_? Can’t you tell?” Beau asks.

Jester throws her hands up with a flash of pink, and then it disperses into the air around her,

“No! I can’t! Molly, why can’t I read your mind?”

“Nothing in there, darling.” Molly’s smile widens, “Nothing to read.”

Caleb frowns minutely as he looks up, but he says nothing, only gathers Frumpkin and Nott closer. Frumpkin mewls indignantly and slips straight through his hand, makes him hiss as the glowing, lithe form of the cat trots across the table like a breeze and sidles up to Molly.

“Traitor.” Caleb mutters darkly, eyes affixed on the glowing, ghostly cat as it winds around Molly’s wrist set on the table. Molly looks over to him in something like concern, but Caleb is smiling, shaking his head and sighing in affectionate exasperation, and his companion is winding his odd, mist-like warmth around Molly’s wrist, so he doesn’t take it seriously.

Stroking Frumpkin is _weird._ He’s made of plasma, he should absolutely be burning Molly’s hands as he scratches roughly behind the cat-shape’s ear, but it feels about the same as Molly thinks it would running his hands through a cloud of warm steam coalescing in the air.

“Stop flirtin’, Molly.” Fjord hisses in his ear, he leans over and presses his chest to Molly’s back to keep his voice down and his breath is hot against the side of his face, it makes Molly shiver a little.

“Not flirting.” Molly breathes back, “Stroking a… cat?”

“He is a cat, _ja_.” Caleb replies, again without looking up from his book, where his attentions have returned, “A cat made of immaterial substance, but a cat all the same. He is mischievous as one, too.”

The little glowing cat on the table ducks at his words, Molly gets a pause of butt-wiggling before a shockingly solid lump of kitty is jumping at him, up his shoulder, and curling onto his head between his horns. It seems that Frumpkin has adjusted his own size for the feat, and he settles down to snooze, draped like a bolt of cloth over Molly’s horns and head. His glowing tail hangs down the side of Molly’s face with the peacock tattoos, lighting them elegantly as it curls under his chin.  
Molly doesn’t even flinch.

Caleb _does_ look up from his book then, spots Frumpkin purring away on Molly’s head and Molly swears his eyes widen and a flush colours his face, just a little bit.

“He likes you.” Caleb says softly, drops his eyes back to his book.

Nott watches him intently.  
He reads the same paragraph four times without seeing it, and then gives up, sighs as he closes the book and looks up at Fjord.  
Fjord has slid into the seat beside Molly and leans over, and Caleb frowns a little as he reaches into his pocket and pulls out a little yellow crystal.  
Nott looks between Caleb and the crystal,

“Are you sure you need it?” she asks softly, “You can’t have many left.”  
  
“Six, to be exact. Including this one. But Fauna mages cannot be all too rare, it will be fine- I am simply curious.” and there’s a soft puff of yellow-and-orange as Caleb activates the crystal and blinks his way into Frumpkin’s eyes and ears.

 

“- _Sure he doesn’t know? If he’s read up on magic-_ ” Fjord is hissing against Molly’s ear. Frumpkin’s tail flicks between Fjord’s mouth and the shell of Molly’s ear. Caleb swears it’s Frumpkin, not him.   
  
“ _It’s fine, Fjord. If he knew, he’d of said something- he hasn’t. We’re fine._ ” Molly hisses back. Frumpkin rubs his head a little to Molly’s hair, and Caleb forces himself not to shudder when Molly reaches up and runs his fingers down the solidity of the cat’s spine.

Caleb doesn’t see the way that Molly’s eyes dart to his human body.  
He shivers just a little when Molly repeats the motion, runs his fingertips along Frumpkin’s back.  
Fjord frowns at Molly a little.  
Molly side-eyes him.

“ _Take it back._ ” Molly says calmly, “ _Think he knows. Still don’t think he’ll say anything. Will you, Caleb?_ ”

His voice is just loud enough for _Fjord_ to hear- there’s no way that Caleb could have heard the whisper from the opposite side of the table but he knows he’s caught.  
He slips back into his own eyes, mentally groaning at the loss of the spell, and looks up to meet Molly’s eyes.

He puts a finger to his lips.

Molly’s shoulders drop, like he’s losing some long-held tension. He blows Caleb a kiss, and smiles when Caleb flushes deeply and drops his eyes to the table.  
Nott sidles up to Caleb’s side.

“That one will be difficult, hm?”

“ _Ja._ ” Caleb says hoarsely, “ _Ja,_ I believe so.”

 

 

The convoy leaves early the next morning, Yasha comes to Molly before dawn rises and bundles him up in her cloak.

“You can’t stay warm.” She tell him simply.

“Nor can you.” He protests, “You’re no Ice Mage.”

“I can still the air around myself if I need to.” She smiles, “And between myself and that Widogast, the one with the cat-”  
  
“Ah, that one.” Molly interrupts without thinking, and Yasha’s eyebrows raise,

“Yes, that one. Between us, we can force the sun.” She slides into the space beside him and slips an arm around Molly’s feather-cloaked shoulders.

“I think he knows.” Molly says, quick and quiet, “About _me_.”

“Ah.” Yasha says softly, “Are you sure? Is he going to say anything?”

“I don’t think so.” Molly sighs, and Yasha begins to guide him to the meeting point. Fjord is already waiting there.

“So we got here maybe twelve hours ago, an’ already someone knows.” Fjord’s eyes roll, the pointed tips of his ears flick against Molly’s next words- _how did you hear that?_

“They’re meetin’ us at dawn, if I remember it right.” Fjord leans against the fencepost, his bedroll backpack sits on the floor beside him, “We just gotta get from here to Siedhelm without anyone else findin’ out. How far a journey is that again, Yasha?”  
  
Yasha sighs and pulls Molly over to shove a hand into her cloak, shifting about until she can withdraw the little lacquered wood cylinder and slip the map out. She eyeballs the distance and tilts her head, squinting as she works it out.

“Oh, I think it would be about- ah. Maybe two weeks travel. We’re going through the Woods, so…”  
  
“The- ah- the woods?” Molly looks up, and Yasha shakes her head slowly,

“The Woods.” She emphasises the word, “Woods of Crossing.”

Molly blinks quickly before the fear can reach his eyes.  
He’d woken up in the Woods of Crossing. It’s not a safe place to be.

“We’re going through the Woods, so I suppose it depends on how nice they’re feeling, how much we pray to Lucy.”

“I pray to nobody other than Alonysius.” Molly scoffs, and Yasha chuckles,

“You don’t know anything about the Woods, hm?”

“Not really.” Molly admits grudgingly, “Other than you don’t want to die there.”

“Well, y’ain’t wrong about that.” Fjord- Molly _thinks_ he laughs. He’s not sure. It’s a strange noise, “Ain’t nobody ever died in the Woods o’ Crossin’ without some kinda fuckery. Ain’t nobody ever died in the Woods o’ Crossin’ at all, now I think about it. Nobody I know of, ‘least.”

“That is not entirely true.” Caleb’s voice reaches them and Molly turns, lightning-quick. Frumpkin rushes up and winds around Molly’s ankles, Molly smiles as he ducks down to the cat and holds his hands out,

“Hey, kitty,” he coos, and Frumpkin mewls as he rubs against Molly’s hands, “Want up?”

He picks Frumpkin up carefully, and Caleb’s eyebrow quirks up. Frumpkin isn’t a fan of being picked up by _anyone_ , even Caleb, and if he didn’t like it- well, he’d just turn himself back to the mist. He must like Molly.  
Frumpkin crawls, ghostly glow and pale as he drapes himself around Molly’s neck.

“You know,” Caleb says, “I am almost jealous.”

“You don’t _make_ him do these things?” Molly tips his head as he turns, and Caleb shakes his head,

“No. He is loyal to me, but also, he is mostly just a glowing cat. He does what he wants until I need his help.”

Molly chuckles and scritches Frumpkin’s head, it makes Caleb smile to see him rub his head to Molly’s hand, “You were saying. About the Woods?”

“People have died in the Woods, _ja_.” Caleb comes to stand beside Molly, and _oh,_ he’s warm, “But they do not stay dead for long. There are speculations that the Woods is a- a- a cage, of sorts, for souls lost nearby, or even perhaps in the world. Mollymauk, _ja?_ ” Caleb puts a hand gently on Molly’s arm and looks up at him expectantly. Molly’s eyes widen a little,   
  
“Uh- y- me? Me Molly. _Ja_.”

On Molly’s other side, Yasha places her face very, very gently into the palm of her hand.

“The Woods are… ah… unpredictable. They can turn you about and on your head, but they are not necessarily dangerous in themself. There are dangerous plants. There are few- very few- dangerous animals there but I- I have, a contingency plan. I have five, really, but-”

“You’re so…” Molly sighs, “ _prepared_. Do you think everything through this thoroughly?”

“Ah, _ja_. _Ja,_ I like to be ready. It is an odd, convoluted journey through the Woods but- but Siedhelm is worth the effort, I think.”

“Why are we going there again?” Nott materialises beside Caleb, and Molly nearly jumps out of his skin. Caleb’s fingers squeeze a little harder on his arm in comfort.

“Are you alright, Mollymauk?”  
  
“Molly to my friends, darling.” Molly responds almost on instinct, “I’m- yes, just- you’re terrifying, Nott.”

A grin full of needle-sharp teeth gleams from under Nott’s faintly glowing yellow eyes.

“Thank you.” She says primly, “Caleb? Why?”  
  
“Oh.” Caleb turns back to her, he’d forgotten in his concern, “We have business there. Old friends.”

The way that he spits the word _friends_ makes something run cold down Molly’s spine, somewhere between icy fear and heart-aching worry.

“Much the same as us, I think.” Molly tries to smile, finds the fingers of his left hand flexing and reaching for the hand Caleb has set on his arm. Damnable touch starvation- Caleb is a _stranger_ , regardless of how attractive he is.

And he is attractive, under the layer of dirt and facial hair and dried blood. Even with it, just- ah.

No.

Molly clamps his left hand to his chest with such force that there’s a dull, reverberating thud and Frumpkin startles himself so hard he shifts from solid state to incorporeal and Molly yelps at the sensation of the cat slipping _through_ his body.  
Caleb wears a small smile, and Molly tries not to find it endearing,

“It is an odd feeling. He likes you, so you should get used to it- he will not stop.”

“Yes, darling, thank you for the warning.” Molly’s voice drips bitter saccharine.

Caleb pulls his fingers back from Molly’s arm.

“Where are Beauregard and Jester? The sun is almost up, and we were supposed to leave before that happened.” Caleb steps away from Molly, Nott follows him, and Fjord slips into the space he’s just vacated.

“We gonna have t’ watch you?”

“Not really.” Molly shrugs, “If I’m not in our tent, I’m in _his_.” and jerks his chin in the direction Caleb has just walked in search of the girls. Yasha groans into her hand.

“If you are not in _his_?”   
  
“Check the nearest forest.” Molly grins at her, and then at Fjord, “If he’s sharing with Nott, I’m sure he won’t want to wake her up.”

“Molly.” Yasha says, her voice calm and stable, “Please stop.”

“Sorry.” He leans over and kisses her cheek gently, “I’ll stop.”

 

 

Jester and Beau join them not long after, and they begin their trek across the Kingdoms on their way to Siedhelm.  
The journey is uneventful, but not quiet, never quiet. Between Jester flirting with Fjord, and Beau flirting with Yasha, there’s always something going on.  
They settle up the first night in a ring around a campfire.

“Should we set up a watch?” it’s Beau to ask, “Seems like we should keep an eye.”

“Should take it in pairs, if we do.” Molly rubs his eyes, “Safer that way.”

“A’ight.” Beau stands, stretches, looks at Yasha, “Hey, wanna take first watch with me? Should maybe get t’ know our- uh- travellin’ companions a little better.”

Yasha looks to Fjord, then to Molly, they both nod to her minutely, so she turns back to Beau,

“Sure.” She says, voice as confused as it should be flat, “I- yes. Of course. Let me get my sword.”

She disappears into her tent- _her_ tent, she has one alone, refuses to share with Fjord and Molly if only because they would be packed too tight with her huge height. When she leaves, Molly lets his shoulders drop and takes a deep, steadying breath.

“Tea, Molly?” Fjord asks quietly from his shoulder, and Molly nods,

“Please.”

Fjord gestures to the tin teapot suspended over the fire, and Molly holds his cup out expectantly as Fjord draws a trail in the air with his finger, and a stream of glimmering amber-brown comes from the spout and snakes through the air, swirling gently into the bottom of Molly’s tin cup with barely a splash. Caleb watches this, doesn’t seem remotely shocked.

“You know that the fire is unnecessary, _ja?_ ” Caleb cocks his head, “If we are going to be using magic with one another, then I can just…”

To emphasise his point, he leans over and sets his fingertips to Beau’s bare arm where she shivers in place. There’s a brief glowing wash of orange that ripples from his touch over her body, and she straightens up in shock.

“Fuck. _Fuck_ that was _nice_. What’d you do?”

“I- I am a Fire Mage.” Caleb frowns as though he’s confused, “I can heat things. I thought you all had figured that with the expediency of the campfire, and with…” He gestures to Frumpkin, who is stalking over to Molly, “That one.”

“Thought you were a Plasma Mage, t’be fair.” Fjord offers, “Y’don’t often see Fire Mages with Plasma powers, they ain’t exactly common.”

“I had a- a teacher.” Caleb replies, Molly shakes his head as Frumpkin leaps to his lap and circles,

“I thought you were- ah- an Earth Mage. With- yes.”

He’d almost given away the Scrying. He doesn’t know if Jester or Beau is aware of that, yet, if Fjord is aware of that, yet. He meets Caleb’s eyes and blinks a few times, and Caleb chews his lip.

“ _Ja_ , the animal companion throws the odd person.”

Yasha chooses that moment to re-emerge with her sword. It’s a great thing, easily five foot in height, and glowing all along one edge of the blade with a faint white light.

“Whoa.” Says Beau.

“Holy _fuck_.” Nott adds.

“That is… _so cool!_ ” Jester leaps up and comes over to touch, Yasha just manages to jolt the blade out of her reach in time and she pouts, makes grabby hands,

“It glows! I wanna touch it!”  
  
“If you touch it,” Yasha warns with a hint of a smile, “It will electrocute you.”

“ _I wanna touch it_.” Jester stamps, and Yasha sighs as she looks around them,

“Can any of you heal?”

Molly tentatively raises a hand,

“I- uh. I can do some things.”

“Can you _heal_?” Yasha asks, a little firmer, “Not cuts or stabs, more like… if Jester got hit with lightning.”

Molly sighs, and shakes his head.  
  
“I can do a little.” Nott offers, “I- I was- am studying it. I want to be as good as Caleb, one day.” and shoots the Fire Mage a glowing smile that has him shrinking in on himself uncomfortably.   
_  
Curious_ , Molly thinks. He clearly cares for the little green one, but she turns her compliments to him and he shies away.  
He mentally notes that down.

“Jester,” Yasha says seriously, Jester is still reaching for the sword, “This could kill you.”

“I! Wanna! Touch!” she strains her fingertips, but Yasha is a good foot taller than she is, and holds it above her own head out of reach.

Yasha sighs and relents, presses Jester back a step with her free hand before she lowers the blade with her right.

“Touch away.”

Jester’s hands come down against the glowing edge of the blade, and there’s an almighty crack, a blinding bright flash, and then the smell of smoke as Jester is flung backwards with her clothes slightly singed. She’s thrown a good four, five feet, lands on her ass and rolls- actually _rolls_ like a wheel- a further three.

“ _Jester!_ ” Beau jumps up, Nott a second behind her, and both are at her side in quite literally the blink of an eye, panting with exertion and leaving twin trails of gold and blue in their wake.

Nott puts her hand under the back of Jester’s head without thought, ripples of gold spreading across Jester’s whole body from Nott’s fingertips.  
There’s a few seconds of soft-glow silence, Nott pushes with everything in her, and then, slowly, Jester’s eyes open to a soft dissipating mist of hot pink.

“Well,” she trills coarsely, “Am _I_ glad I remembered I could forcefield.”

Nott drops her head to the floor with a noise of exasperation, and Jester yelps through laughter as her head cracks on the earth. It’s not hard, there has been recent rainfall, but it’s still shock enough to hurt.

“Anyway,” Molly’s voice cuts over the top of Beau and Jester’s bickering, “I’m happy to take second watch. That should get us through the night.”

“Four hours each, _ja_?” Caleb asks, “I will take the second watch with you, then, Mollymauk. I- ah. Sleep and I are not always the closest of friends.”

“Well, hopefully by the end of the night, you and I will be.” Molly flashes him a bright smile, and is almost floored when Caleb gives him a small, nervous smile in return. It’s only a flash, just a tiny, bright thing but _oh_ , it’s so wonderful.

Caleb seems sweet and scared and something in Molly wants to stand over him and growl, protective and shielding. It’s a very odd, primal urge.  
And when Molly blinks and bright red dissipates from his hands and eyes, a wash of fear floods over him.

Maybe it isn’t an urge at all.

“I’ll wake you up for your watch.” Yasha comes to his side and leans down, kisses his forehead tenderly. When she turns away, Molly sees her pressing the spent crystal out of the hilt of her sword, and holding it in her palm as moonlight-pale light pools around her hand, swirling like a vortex and fading into the crystal. She re-inserts it into the hilt, and the edge of the blade lights up once more.

Molly catches Fjord’s hand as he yawns, and stands to pull the taller man to his tent with him.

“See you for watch, Caleb. Goodnight.”

He gets a chorus of faint _night, Molly_ ’s back, and he pulls Fjord into the tent.  
And then there’s a stillness that settles over the camp. Beau shifts to go and sit with Yasha, and the fire is left to Caleb, Nott, and Jester, the latter of which sit side-by-side and hand-in-hand, the faint wash of gold magic ebbing and flowing across their join as Nott slowly pumps Jester back to full health. There’s sweat breaking on her brow as she works through the odd, magical bond between them and centres her magic to the places that need fixed- mostly, she finds, Jester’s ankles, and a spot in her lungs charred by the fragment of electricity that her forcefield couldn’t stop.

It feels odd and private to explore Jester’s body in this way. She’s searching for the pains and ailments to fix, but she can still map out the anatomy in a- a- somewhat uncomfortable way. Jester has a headache, mostly from where her head hit the ground, and Nott can feel the way her magic seeps easier to that hurt than to the unbruised skull around it.  
  
She’s exhausted by the time that Jester realises how much of herself she’s pushed into this, and turns to take her cheek against Jester’s cool palm,

“Oh, Nott. You didn’t have to do so much.”

“You- we’re… friends.” Nott gives a weak smile, “Travel. Care.”

“And you’re too tired to make full sentences!” Jester is chirpy but her eyes betray her concern, “Caleb, take her to bed. Careful not to wake her for your watch, Molly will fetch you. Beau always sleeps right away.”

“Seems unreliable.” Caleb quirks a smile and offers an arm out to Nott, “Come, Nott, let’s rest.”

Nott lets go of Jester’s hand and toddles- stumbles, mostly- into Caleb’s waiting arms, he scoops her up and nods respectfully to Jester before they wander off into their tent. A moment passes, and Jester sighs as she waves a hand, pink glowing around a clump of earth as she lifts it and dumps it over the fire, sends it sizzling out. Beau looks over her shoulder,

“Didn’t occur t’ you that we might want that for warmth?”  
  
“You’re cold?” Yasha turns to her, and Jester smiles in the split second that Beau’s attention remains on her before her friend’s ice-blue eyes slip to meet Yasha’s, and Jester slips alone into her tent.  
There’s a few quiet minutes of Beau and Yasha talking outside.

“I- psh. Naw, I’m not cold! Still feelin’ whatever Caleb did t’ me.”

Yasha looks her over and quirks a smile as she shivers again, harder this time.

“Do you want my cloak?”

“Won’t _you_ get cold, then?” Beau frowns, and Yasha shrugs. There’s a pale, moonlight-coloured glow from her hands and eyes, and suddenly, Beau is… warm. There is no breeze. There is no biting early winter chill. The air is still, and with that stillness comes a warmth.  
Still, she shifts a little closer to Yasha.

“I can do this.” Yasha tells her softly, “You can have my cloak, if you want.”

“Or,” Beau pats her arm, “Counter idea: I get a fuckin’ blanket and then we’re both cosy.”

Yasha sighs, and Beau goes to stand, but before she can make it, Yasha is swinging her feathered cloak from her shoulders and draping it around Beau’s instead.  
Beau stills.

“Thanks.”

And she sits back down.

 

Nott sneaks into Jester’s tent barely minutes after she’s curled up, committed to a night alone.

“Jester?” her shrill voice cuts through the silence despite her quiet, almost whisper. Jester lifts her head,

“Nott?”  
  
“I- um- you look… lonely.”

With her darkvision, Jester can just about make out the dim shapes of Nott in the opening of the tent, holding her bedroll in her arms,

“I don’t take up much space. I’m small.” Nott offers, and Jester wriggles and jumps her way toward Beau’s bedroll without climbing out of her own, makes a space on her other side that Nott scrambles into with a grin outlined in moonlight.

“I like having people around when I’m sleeping.” Jester admits to her, wide pale eyes glimmering faintly in the dull light coming through the oiled canvas of the tent, “I was alone for a long time. It’s easier to sleep when someone else is here.”

“I just want to make sure you don’t die in your sleep.” Nott replies in a trim voice, and Jester smiles as she nestles down and closes her eyes.

“Good enough.”

 

Beau ends up falling asleep against Yasha’s arm, but that’s fine. Yasha doesn’t mind, she’s within arm’s reach if she needs to wake her up, it’s no big deal.  
Beau starts to shiver a little, even with Yasha’s cloak, and Yasha gives a soft puff of breath that fogs the night air as she makes the decision to slip her arm around Beau’s shoulders.  
Beau sleeps through, snuggles sleepily closer to her and cuddles up and Yasha almost coos at how sweet it is.  
Beau, awake, is all rough edges and sharp tongue, angled out and pointy and brash. It’s hard to believe how soft she becomes in sleep, how squishy and cuddly. How easy it would be to fry her right now, like an ant under a magnifying glass.

Yasha shakes that thought from her head.

It’s been years since she’s done something like that. She won’t be that again.

Molly has taught her better.

 

Yasha takes pot luck at how long they’ve been out on watch, and when it seems like their time is up, she jostles Beau a little.  
Beau stays firmly snoozing.  
Yasha sighs gently as she scoops her up and shuffles to Jester’s tent to put her to bed, tucks her into her bedroll with little more than soft noises and wriggling. She’s still wearing Yasha’s cloak. Fuck it, she could probably use it.

As Yasha is backing out, a glowing, ghostly cat form slips from Caleb’s tent and wraps around her ankles.

“Hello.” She crouches, makes an attempt to scritch behind Frumpkin’s ears and finds her fingers meeting warm mist. The cat seems to enjoy it anyway, and when Yasha looks up, Caleb is emerging from the tent.

“Switchover?” He asks her, rubbing his eyes with the bandaged heel of his hand and Yasha quirks a smile. She can see why Molly has, already, taken a liking to this man.

“Yes, I’m going to wake Molly-”

“Don’t worry about it.” Caleb clicks his fingers and points to Molly’s tent, and Frumpkin ghosts through Yasha’s hands and ankles, makes her shudder a little bit, “I have it. You can take my bedroll, I know you did not set yours out last night. Nott keeps them clean. I promise you that.”

Yasha wants to protest, but she’s cold, she’s tired, she wants to sleep.

So she nods, mumbles a soft thanks, and wanders past him to collapse to sleep in his bedroll.

 

  
Fjord wakes with a start at a magical glow.

“ _Fuck_.” he hisses, sitting up, sleepy eyes unfocused on the globule of pale orange, “Molly, ambush!”

There’s a bright burst of sickly green, and the air in the tent collects and condenses and, with a brief glow, coalesces into a flash frost around Frumpkin as Molly sits up,

“Fjord, fuck, that’s his _cat_!”

There’s a soft puff.  
The glow of Fjord’s magic dissipates, green into darkness as the ice crystals fall to the floor, leaving behind a puddle of Frumpkin-coloured light that evaporates seconds later into nothingness.

Fjord looks over at Molly with wide, horrified, sort of glowing eyes. Molly stares back.

“You… dumb fuck. You killed him. I need to go take watch with Caleb, and you _killed_ him.”

“I am so _fucking_ sorry.” falls from Fjord’s mouth and Molly sighs as he rubs his eyes clear of the bleariness filling them,

“Go back to sleep. I’ll smooth it over.”

And he’s up and out before Fjord can reply, dragging a blanket around his shoulders as he moves into the cold clearing.

 

Caleb hears the scuffling behind him and turns minutely to see Molly trailing out of his tent, looking somewhat worried. That alarms him, he turns fully to face Molly as he shuffles over.

“Fjord,” Molly pants for breath, he’s scrambled out of bed, “ _killed your cat_ , I’m so _sorry_ , he panicked-”

Oh, well, shit. There’s tears in Molly’s eyes and he flops forward into… a… hug? Caleb thinks its an attempt, two hands lift around his waist loosely and Molly’s head curls against his shoulder and Caleb sighs softly as he pulls his own arms around Molly’s back, loose and awkward and rolls his eyes.

“Molly- Mollymauk. It’s _fine_. I am awake for watch anyway, I can just- I will rebuild him.”

“I was too late to stop him.” Molly sniffles.

Caleb, feeling Molly’s shiver, feeling his arms wind around his hips, thumps his head down to Molly’s shoulder.

“We are not much use like this, Mollymauk. We should set up for watch.”

“Okay.” Molly draws upright. Caleb doesn’t feel the loss of his arms acutely, no sir. Nothing of the sort. He doesn’t leave a cold spot behind.

When Molly sits close to him on the overturned log, Caleb swears it’s because of the cold. When Molly shifts his blanket around both of their shoulders, Caleb says nothing. When Molly shivers, Caleb takes his hand.

“Caleb?” Molly looks up,

“Just a moment.”

There’s a pause, and a ripple of orange floods from Caleb into Molly, fills the latter with a deep warmth, like he’s been cuddled up under a blanket pile all night.

“Oh.” Molly says, “That’s nice.”

“ _Ja,_ well, it will not last long so enjoy it. It will take me an hour or so to recreate Frumpkin, so you may want to take your blanket for yourself.”

Molly tilts his head, frowns ever so slightly,

“But then you’ll get cold.”

“I was on the streets for a long time before Nott met up with me and brought her tent along with her. I am no stranger to cold.”

“Well, I would prefer that you were.” Molly smiles, near brightly, and shuffles even closer. He’s hot, up against Caleb’s side, and Caleb damn near jumps out of his own skin when Molly folds himself down to lay across his lap.

“Mollymauk.” He says, and tries to keep the croak out of his voice, “What are you doing?”

“Penguins, my dear Caleb, penguins.”

Caleb is none the wiser.

“What about penguins?”  
  
“They huddle up.” Molly clasps his fingers together to emphasise his point, “They share their heat, and it lasts longer. Same principle.”

Caleb stares down at him, Molly’s eyes are on his own hands as he shifts and re-threads his fingers, comfortable in Caleb’s lap.

“Yes.” Caleb says, as though he understands, and then lets the quiet take them as he begins to condense and ionise the world around him, collecting glowing wisps of mist and slowly, slowly, slowly sculpting his cat.

 

  
True to his word, it takes Caleb over an hour, and the orange glow gets stronger with each wisp he adds. He’s growing tired, exhausted, as he pulls Frumpkin’s whiskers out and breathes, an exhale of orange mist that clouds around and settles into the plasma for a few seconds before it begins to move and Caleb, sighing with relief, flumps forward to fold across Mollymauk.

“You’re done?” Molly asks lightly from under him. Caleb hadn’t realised he was still awake.

In answer to the question, Frumpkin leaps lightly from Molly’s shoulders to the log in front of his face.

“Hey, kitty.” Molly grins, reaches up to stroke through Frumpkin’s ‘fur’ gently. There’s no change to the last time. It’s still a warm mist, and he butts his head to Molly’s fingers. Caleb can feel the flex and shift of Molly’s muscles along his back, against his own chest.

Something catches Caleb’s eye the same time it catches Frumpkin’s ears, and the cat slips through the log to the floor and drops into stalking position.  
Caleb leans down to hover just above Molly’s ear, keeps his voice quiet as he breathes,

“There is something there.”

Molly tenses under him.

“ _Where_?” he breathes back, and Caleb, gently, draws the shape of an arrow on his back. He sets his hand over it, when he’s done, looses another burst of warm orange light into Molly and almost smiles when Molly physically relaxes against him. It’s only momentary, a response to the flood of warmth, but it’s still nice- almost like a sensation of trust.

Frumpkin stalks along, curling around the edges of the tents, careful, his glow dim as he hides himself among the long grass. Caleb leans down to Molly’s ear again,

“I am going to be- be blind, and deaf, in myself for a moment whilst I look through Frumpkin’s eyes.” He breathes, and feels the pointed tip of Molly’s ear graze across his lips as it flickers in response to the proximity. Molly slips a hand along the log, presses it to Caleb’s thigh and squeezes.

Caleb slips a little yellow crystal from his pocket, brings it to his lips, and lets a thrum of magic loose through it, and then he sees through Frumpkin’s eyes.

 

He’s curled to the edge of a tent, staring intently at their intruder- intruder _s_ , actually, there’s two of them. First, a tall half-dragon, a splash of dark scales all across her right side, looking quickly around as she presses and shields around a shorter, dwarven woman with an undercut and a shadow of facial hair- Caleb can’t see too much in this light, even with Frumpkin’s enhanced vision.

The cat slips a little closer, and then freezes as the half-dragon’s yellow eye catches the glow of his movement.

For a few long, terrifying seconds, there’s a stare-off. The dwarf tugs at the straps of a battleaxe as she follows her friend’s intent line of sight, and Caleb’s heart sinks as he thinks of re-creating Frumpkin _again_ \- he’s already close to tapped on energy for the day. It’s a lot of work.  
Frumpkin does not move forward, just waves his tail low in the grass.

The half-dragon drops to her knees, a smile splitting her face as she holds out a hand toward Frumpkin,

“Hey, cute thing.” She coos to him, and in his body, Caleb quirks a smile that Molly watches in awe. Caleb makes Frumpkin shuffle forward on his belly to sniff and butt at her fingers, and then blinks back into his own body and sits up from Molly.

“I do not think that we are in any danger. There is a half-dragon playing with my cat, and a dwarf with a battleaxe.”

“Ah.” Molly says gently, and sits up, “Friends!”

This, he calls over the tents, carrying despite the low volume, and Frumpkin straightens and flares up to bound back over to him.  
A moment later, the half-dragon follows, trailing the dwarf behind her.

“Hi.” The half-dragon waves shyly, and Molly grins as he wiggles his fingers in return, slings an arm around Caleb’s shoulders. Caleb nearly flinches under him, but leans into it, leans into the lie. He wraps an arm around Molly’s waist. Frumpkin jumps up and curls into Molly’s lap.

“You are hanging around our- our camp for… what purpose?” Caleb looks from the half-dragon to the dwarf, tries to keep his eyes piercing.

“Lookin’ for a place to sleep where we’re not going to get _robbed_ or murdered.” The dwarf speaks up, her voice is a little coarse, probably something to do with the amount she smokes. She takes another drag of the cigarette.

“Got any more of those?” Molly gestures to her, and she narrows her eyes at him.

“Depends what you’re trading for.”

“Well, if you can assure us that _we_ are in no danger by harboring the two of you, we can promise the remainder of the night in rest, and accompanied travel if you are going our way.”

There’s a quiet stalemate as the half-dragon slips back to her knees and coos for Frumpkin, who turns, but does not move.  
Eventually, the dwarf relents and whips a cigarette from a pouch on her belt, edges over cautiously to hand it to Molly.

“Keg.” she says flatly as he takes it with a nod of thanks.

“Pardon?” he replies, and she groans, pushes her face into her hand.  
  
“My name. It’s Keg. That’s Cali- Calianna.”   
  
“Cali is fine.” The half-dragon, Cali, smiles over her shoulder before she returns her attentions to the cat ignoring her. Molly shifts the cigarette between two fingers and wiggles it in Caleb’s direction.

“Couldn’t light me up, could you, darling?” he gives Caleb a saccharine smile and pads the request out with a gentle press to Caleb’s shoulders. Caleb, with his free hand, reaches up and touches the tip of his finger to the cigarette with a brief glow of orange, and when he pulls away, it’s glowing by itself.

Keg watches them in silence and takes a drag of her own, lets out a plume of smoke before she speaks,

“Well, overt flirting out of the way, uh… where can we sleep?”

Molly looks to Caleb, a trail of smoke from the side of his mouth and Caleb nods to Yasha’s tent.

“For tonight, in there. You will need your own bedrolls- I trust you have them.”

“Of course we have bedrolls.” Keg scoffs, “We’re not townies.”

“Then as you will.” He tells them, “Frumpkin can show you exactly where to go.”

Frumpkin stands at that, drops through Molly’s legs and treads to Cali, pushing up against her hand briefly before passing through them, heading for Yasha’s tent. Cali and Keg follow, slow and clunky, and Molly huffs a relieved sigh and flumps against Caleb, cigarette held as far from the Fire Mage as possible.

“Stressful.” he murmurs, the smell of smoke around him heavy and near-intoxicating in the way it blends with the scent of lavender. Caleb smiles, without thinking, tips his head to bump gently to Molly’s.

“It is why we are here. Are you okay?”

“Of course. Why wouldn’t I be?”  
  
“Are you warm enough?”

Molly becomes shockingly aware that Caleb’s arm is still around his waist, and with a smirk, he presses closer.

“I can always be warmer.”

Caleb shifts both arms up around him, almost cuddles him closer, feels Molly’s head turn to take a long drag before he shifts the cigarette away again.

“I do not mind the smoke.” Caleb tells him, “You can smoke.”

“Want a drag?” the cigarette comes closer and he _does_. But- smoke- fire-

“Yes.”

Well, he answers without his own permission, and Molly doesn’t _hand it over,_ just raises it to Caleb’s lips and lets him drag.

There’s something hot and intimate about it, about the twin trails of smoke that drift from the two of them as Molly cuddles closer and they alternate back and forth for drags. Eventually, Molly tosses it to the ground, Caleb grinds it out, twists the heel of his boot against it. Molly snuggles up against his shoulder.

“Caleb, darling,” Molly’s voice is a low purr, “You should take a nap.”

“I am on _watch_.” Caleb pulls a face, and Molly chuckles as he adjusts the blanket to be tighter around Caleb’s shoulders, around Molly,

“You don’t need to move. You can sleep on me, I make an excellent pillow, and you need to recharge some.”

“So do you.” Caleb points out, Molly shrugs, Caleb feels it in the blanket,

“Yasha can carry me if needs be.”

Caleb wants to argue, but the idea of falling asleep on Molly- well. He’s very tired. Re-making Frumpkin is an exhausting job.

“You will wake me if there is a disturbance?”

“Of course, sweetheart.” Molly lifts his head to kiss Caleb’s temple, the same way Yasha kisses his forehead, “No trouble.”

They shift, re-settle with Caleb’s head on Molly’s shoulder, arms around his waist. Molly keeps one arm around Caleb’s shoulders, the other holds the blanket close around them.

“I’ll wake you later. Sleep well.”

“Thank you, Mollymauk.” Caleb’s voice is already distant, and Molly smiles. All his natural charm, and he already has the Fire Mage in his arms.

 

 

Keg and Beau have something of a standoff the following morning. They meet one another’s eyes over the empty fire pit, and look from one another to their friend(s) quickly.

“So, uh.” Beau says, eyes on Keg, “Our numbers went up overnight.”

“Oh. _Ja_.” Caleb smiles for her, diffuse the tension, “This is Keg.”   
  
“Keg?” Beau wrinkles her nose, and Keg’s posture changes, just minutely, more relaxed.

“Yeah. Keg. Like, powder, or booze.”

There’s a few seconds more of silence as Beau scrutinises her, then,

“Yeah. Alright, cool.” and she’s off to collect food and water for the breakfast.

Keg sits heavily next to Caleb.

“Hey.” she greets, and Caleb nods at her. She’s quiet, doesn’t talk to him until Beau re-appears and holds the tin teapot out to him to tap, a ripple of orange and it grows hot. She hangs it on the spit over the empty fire pit.

“So. Fire Mage?” Keg asks, side-eyeing him, and Caleb makes a noise of affirmation,

“ _Ja_. I am Fire, Jester is Spirit, and both Beauregard and Nott,” he gestures to each of them as their name is said, “Have some Clanless abilities. Mollymauk says that he can read fortunes as the extent of his abilities, and I believe that Yasha- you have not met her yet- is either an Air Mage or a Lightning Mage. Ah- and yourself? Cali?”   
  
“Uh, well, I’m… Earth. Technically. Not very good at it, can’t do plants for shit, but I’m good with gravity. Heavy, you know?”

“ _Ja_. Seems like it would be helpful for someone that wields a battleaxe to manipulate the force of gravity on an object. Increase the weight.”   
  
“That’s mostly what I use it for. Cali is… uh… Acid. Clanless an’ Acid.”

“That is- I have never met an Acid Mage. I have met those good with poisons, but never magically.”

“She’s a beast. I know it’d look like I’m the damage, but Cali is stronger, faster, and smarter than I am.” Keg gives a bark of laugh and Caleb smiles. He likes her. “She’s also too sweet, so that’s what I’m useful for.”  
  
“You look as though you can deal a heavy hit.” Caleb points out, and Keg nods proudly.

“I’m _pretty sure_ I’ve cut a whole bear in half once. Almost. They’re taller than I am, so…”

“That is impressive, _ja_. You will get along with Yasha and Beauregard, then, they are our damage dealers as far as I am aware.”

 

Jester is hauling a bucket of water up to the camp when she bumps into Cali following Frumpkin to a copse of trees nearby.

There’s a second of shocked silence as strangers lock eyes, broken by Frumpkin shifting himself solid and leaping up to rest on Cali’s shoulder. This seems to decide something in Jester, who relaxes and smiles instead, holding a hand out to Cali,

“You must be one of us if Frumpkin likes you! Jester.”

“I’m Cali,” Cali shakes, and tips her head, and mirrors Jester’s smile, “You’re adorable.”

“You have very nice hair bows.”  
  
“Your jewellery is very pretty!”

They begin a back-and-forth of compliments as they wander back up to the camp, and eventually, Jester plops the bucket in front of Caleb, still awkwardly chattering to Keg. It’s the most conversational that she’s seen him be with anyone other than Nott, and she grins for it,

“Cay-leb!” She trills, “Could you warm me up, _please_?”

“You, or the water?”

“Oh, is there hot water?” Molly strolls over, Fjord behind him, and then frowns, “Jester, did you haul that from the river?”

“Uh- yeah? Where am I going to get water from?” Jester rolls her eyes with a grin, “Silly Molly.”

“Try Fjord?”

Fjord, to emphasise Molly’s point, waves a hand glowing faintly in sickly green light, and clenches his fist. A ball of water forms in the air, and Fjord takes hold of it, fills it with that same light.

“Oh.” Jester says, dejected.

“Don’t worry, miss Jester!” Cali pats her shoulder, “If it wasn’t for the water, I would have missed you!”

“I _suppose_.” Jester drawls, “Anyway, Caleb, could you heat the water?”

Caleb leans forward to the bucket and taps the rim softly, immediately, the bucket glows faintly orange in ripples and Caleb smiles, reaches in to touch a fingertip to the surface of the water. It steams gently, lazy curls raising in the morning light.

“Thank you!”

“Couldn’t get this, too, could you?” Molly points at the ball Fjord is holding, and Caleb nods. Fjord throws the ball to him and Caleb yelps, reaching out to catch it and finding it… shockingly firm. Like a gel. And still glowing that odd, sickly green.

“Yeah, still, uh.” Fjord says, eyes focused on the water, “Still holdin’ it together.”

Caleb hums as he focuses his magic into the ball, heats it up, and bounces it gently back to Fjord, who splits it in half and puts one half into a little cup that Molly has produced,  manipulates the other half into his hands and bends almost in half as he splashes it onto his face.  
Keg gives a laugh at that. Caleb smiles, Molly winks, and they all split to pack away their tents.

 

 

With two people on watch at all times, they manage to squish them all into the four tents. Caleb and Nott, Yasha and Beau, Fjord and Molly, Keg and Cali, and Yasha on her own- they switch the orders at night with odd and complex rules. Like Jester doesn’t mind sharing a tent with any of the girls, or Molly, but prefers not to share with Fjord or Caleb. And Caleb doesn’t much like sharing a tent with anyone but Nott, but will make an exception for Beau, or Molly. Yasha doesn’t give a shit where she sleeps, nor does Keg, or Cali, and will collapse anywhere.

 

 

They pass outside of most villages on their way to Siedhelm, and it takes them a week of travel to reach to Woods of Crossing.

“If any of you pray to Gods that aren’t Lucy, this is where you stop.” Yasha, leading the party, announces. It aches her to say. Her own God, she knows, understands this sentiment- the few times she has passed through these Woods before, Hal had come to her in her dreams with the symbol of the Witch of the Woods in his hands.

“Alonysius-” Molly starts, and Yasha shakes her head, turns to put a hand on his shoulder.

“The other Gods, they understand. When we leave the Woods, nothing changes, everything goes back to normal. But in the Woods, you pray to Lucy, or you don’t come out alive again.”

“Maybe the reason nobody dies in the Woods is that nobody ever finds their bodies.” Molly grumbles, and Yasha shakes her head, again,

“Their bodies are always found on the outskirts. The ones that died of old age, occasionally starvation, attacks from animals, poisons. Nobody has ever found a body in the Woods.”

“I have.” Molly says before he can stop himself, and Caleb shuffles forward to stand with them, eyes wide,

“You found a body in the Woods?”

“Yeah.” Molly tilts his chin up. “Mine.”

 

 

The first night they set up camp in the Woods, Molly takes first watch, and Caleb nearly fights Yasha to take it with him.   
The Gods only know nobody else will.

_“So you’re a_ **_zombie_ ** _? A_ **_vampire?_ ** _”_

Jester’s voice won’t leave Molly’s ears, he starts the night on the log alone, watching, the people he travels with sleeping in their tents behind him. He spins a scimitar between two fingers, leg bouncing, pretending he doesnt care, pretending he’s okay.

There’s a rustle behind him, like someone turning over in their sleep, and before Molly can turn, something warm is draped around his shoulders and Caleb appears to his left, stepping over the log and sitting close to him, pulling the blanket up around his shoulders, too.  
The blanket, actually, is warm, like it’s been hung beside a fire. Caleb must have juiced it.

Caleb presses his shoulder, his side, his thigh to Molly’s in almost comfort.

“Do you mind questions?”

“I- I don’t talk about it a lot but you can _ask_. I might not answer.”

“You can tell me to stop any time, you know this, _ja_?”

“Okay.”

There’s silence that passes then. Molly thinks Caleb might have gotten distracted.

“You say your body was in the woods.” He says, slowly, “Do you mind-?”  
  
“It was two years ago.” Molly says loosely, hollowly, “I don’t remember anything before that. I didn’t know who I was. I woke up in the forest, and a- a ginger woman, a human, she found me clawing my way out of the ground and helped me to dig myself up. The name she gave me at the time was- ah- _Albatross_ , I believe. I know it has something to do with my name now. I don’t remember a lot.”

Caleb winds an arm around Molly’s hips, gentle, comforting.

“What do you remember?”

“I never knew her name, but she and her partner- Lief, I think she called him- she took me to the trail and set me loose, and I bumped into Yasha soon after. Yasha was the one to call me Mollymauk, first, and _tea leaf_ were the first coherent words I said, so…”

“When you woke up, were you injured?”

“I was- I was drained, near enough, of most of my blood. But I was covered in little cuts, so it made sense that I’d near bled out. Or maybe I did, and came back. I don’t know. I want to stop talking about this.”

“Of course, I’m sorry. Molly, are you crying?”

Molly sinks his scimitar into the earth beside him and turns full to Caleb, finds himself swept into a hug before he can even ask, one of Caleb’s arms still around his waist and the other comes up around his shoulders, buries his fingers in Molly’s hair and pulls him in.

“I’m sorry.” Caleb murmurs, “I’m sorry.”

 

They end up staying there all night, forgetting that they were supposed to switch with Keg and Beau. They curl together, share warmth and their stories and snippets and it’s nearing dawn when Molly rests his head on Caleb’s shoulder.

“You know about me, don’t you?”

Caleb is so quiet that Molly thinks he might have fallen asleep.

“I have… speculations. _Ja_.”

“You know why Jester can’t read my mind. Why I can still be sad, even when she’s putting out that aura of hers.” They aren’t questions.

“You are- ah- you are a Blood Mage.” Caleb answers awkwardly, “I had put the pieces together.”

“But you haven’t said anything.” Molly sits up so that he can look at Caleb, catch his eye, “Why?”

Caleb is quiet.  
Too quiet.  
He says nothing. He barely even breathes.

And then he gets up and walks away.

 

 

 

“Caleb!” Nott calls to the Woods, peering around. The rope binding her right wrist to Yasha’s tugs a little as the latter turns, about thirty feet away.

“Caleb!” Nott hears her call mimicked, and again, and again. They’re all bound together, shouldn’t wander in the Woods of Crossing, not alone.

Nott looks to her left, to Molly, she hasn’t felt him tug in a while.

“For the love of fuck.” She spits.

The rope binding her to Molly is slack because _Molly isn’t there_.

“Yasha!” She calls, “Molly’s gone, too!”

 

_“If I’m not in our tent, I’m in his.”_ Yasha remembers Molly’s voice in her ears,

_“If you are not in his?”_

_“Check the nearest forest.”_ and the sound of his smile.

 

“Gods _fucking_ damn it, Molly.” Yasha curses, “We should move back to the trail! They’ll find us.”

 

Molly, as it happens, is busy inching through the undergrowth. Brambles pull at his clothes, his skin, his hair but he pushes himself onward. It’s his fault Caleb is gone. He needs to find him.  
He heads toward the sound of running water, eager to wash away the rivulets of blood collecting on his bare arms where the thorns have caught him, and it’s there that he sees Caleb.

Lying, half in the gently-running river, half on the embankment.

“Caleb!” Molly calls and runs and vaults over to Caleb’s side.

Then he sees the plant and his blood turns to ice in his veins.

“No. Shit. Goddamnit. _Yasha! Keg! Beau!_ ” He feels his throat ache and rip and forces his voice louder with ever name, _“_ ** _Fjord! Cali! NOTT! JESTER!_** ”

 

Fjord’s ear twitches, he sees Nott’s do the same,

“You heard it?”

“That way.” Nott points, and stands, immediate, “Molly found him. Molly found him, we need to go-” and she’s scrambling, tin plate forgotten behind her on the trail, and Jester scoops it up as she and the others rush to follow.

 

Molly crouches down and takes Caleb’s hand. There’s a thin, gently bleeding line down the back of it where he’s scraped across the inch-long thorn of the Solancythys plant, most likely as he fell. There’s no way that Caleb would touch something so deadly so willingly.

“Come on.” Molly closes his eyes and focuses every inch of his willpower, “Come on, come on, come on.”

When Nott bursts through the treeline, she sees Caleb half soaked second, and Molly, lit up like a crimson beacon first, eyes screwed shut, lips pressed to the back of Caleb’s hand and on his knees, the glow of his magic thick as blood and leaking upward into the air, globules spilling off and dissipating.

“Here!” she calls behind her, and Molly doesn’t even react.

His attention is split between filtering Caleb’s blood, and searching himself for a vision of the future.

 

He sees a flash of ginger in his mind. A braid. He sees Lief, the points of his half-elven ears and the chime of his bells. He sees a hut. He sees Caleb, laid out like a funeral on a bed of soft grass, arms crossed over his chest. He sees himself.

Kissing Caleb.

 

And then he sees Nott, taking a leap across the river that she isn’t going to make and launches for her, manages to catch her wrists without losing his footing and yanks her back to him, she falls against his chest and he manages, narrowly, to miss the Solancythys and its deadly thorns.

“Shit.” Nott hisses as she sees it.

“What the _fuck_ are we going to do?” Molly huffs back.

 

There’s the soft sound of tiny, jingling bells.

_That’s_ what they’re going to do.

 

Fjord and the others spill through the treeline, and Nott clambers off of Molly to update them on what’s happening. Keg, from the other side of the river, frowns and holds out a hand. There’s a shimmer of ochre light over the ground around the plant, and then the whole chunk lifts up.  
Nott looks to Keg, gesturing clumsily toward the earthen chunk, eyes glowing that odd yellow, she shifts the plant safely away to the river and thuds it down there. Fjord gestures to the river and there’s a bright glow of sickly green as it lifts as though running over a hill, forms an arch, and the group filters through it to Caleb’s side of the river.  
Molly hauls Caleb up and into his arms, turns to the undergrowth.

“This way.” He says, pants, “We’re going this way. Come on.”

“That goes deeper!” Cali protests, “Mister Caleb needs help now!”

“That’s where I’m going.” the bell sound is fading, Molly needs to chase it, “Come on. Come-” and he’s off, chasing down the bells, chasing down _Lief_.

 

 

 

  
He finds Lief, and the ginger woman, crouching together over a plant outside a little wooden house. It would be sweet, Molly thinks, if he didn’t have Caleb dying in his arms.

“Ah, my Albatross.” The ginger woman straightens, “I saw that you would return.”

There’s the crackling of trampled foliage as the rest of the travelling band follow behind them, and Yasha stops with wide eyes, staring at the gold symbol embroidered into the ginger woman’s cardigan.

“Lucy.” Molly hears Yasha breathe.

“The one and only.” the ginger woman- Lucy- inclines her head, “Now, Albatross, it was Solancythys, yes?”

“I- yes. Yes, please-” Molly’s head can’t catch up with anything, he’s lagging behind, and Lief moves to the door of the house, presses it open in silence,

“Bring him in.” Lucy tells Molly, enters the house, and Molly follows, panting for breath.

 

The inside of Lucy’s house is oddly charming. The floor is dirt, but no matter how Molly’s feet drag, it doesn’t seem to shift. In the centre of the large main room, there is a cauldron, herbs and ingredients of all kinds are strung from the rafters, drying. There is a bookcase on one side, stuffed to the brim with books and little bottles and knives and all sorts of knick knacks.

Lucy, however, has moved to a square of grass growing from the dirt floor, bright, almost magical in colour, she stops beside it,

“Here.” She says, “Put him here.”

Molly, dumbly, does as she says. He lays Caleb down on the grass, and flinches as waves of pale blue wash over him, and his breathing, immediately, becomes less rasping.

Lucy leans down and folds Caleb’s arms across his chest, careful, before she moves to the cauldron and begins to work there.

“That will hold it long enough for me to finish this. There is nothing any of you can do, just yet.” she adds the last as the others file in against the wall, both Keg and Beau immediately flop to the floor.

“There’s got to be _something_.” Molly croaks, sticks beside Caleb, “ _Anything_.”

“You can pass me ingredients, and entertain my husband.” Lucy smiles up towards Lief, who rolls his eyes at her with an affectionate smirk on his own face.

“Who the fuck _are_ you?” Nott’s shrill voice cuts the air, and Lucy turns minutely to her, smile, as ever, gentle and calm.

“I am Lucy, the Witch of the Woods. You’ve been praying to me since you came here, and I heard every one of you.”

 

It takes Lucy an hour to brew whatever she’s trying to. Occasionally, she’ll point at something hanging from her ceiling, and Molly or Yasha will take it down and hand it to her, string it back up when she’s done.

“Nott.” She says distantly, halfway through, “On my shelf- third shelf- might need to go in a bit. Gauze. Bandages. Cloth.”

Nott is up and scrambling.

 

By the end of the hour, the room is full of the scent of alchemy, the potion in the cauldron is bright blue-green, and Caleb’s breathing is getting more and more hoarse. Molly gently strokes the hair back from his face, he’s sweating something _fierce_.  
He leans down and presses his lips gently to Caleb’s forehead, tastes the sourness of sweat and smells, even through the fever, the warm scent of wood-smoke and books and ink that Caleb seems to ingrain into every part of himself.

Lucy studies him carefully as she takes a square of gauze from Nott, blindly dips a little gold ladle into the cauldron and tips a few drops of glimmering potion onto the middle of the gauze.

“Alright,” Lucy says, and her voice seems loud after the relative silence of the room, “Let’s see… Nott, Albatross… Beauregard.”

Beau straightens from the floor immediately,

“Yeah?”

“I need you three here, please.”

She comes to Caleb’s side and crouches, hands the potion-soaked gauze back to Nott,

“Do any of you have a dagger, or a knife?”

“I, uh-” Beau pats herself down, “I have darts-”  
  
“Caleb has a dagger.” Nott says quietly, slips a hand to the inside of Caleb’s coat and unbuckles the dagger from the sheath at his hip. She withdraws it, and goes to hand it to Lucy.

Lucy shakes her head,

“The last ingredient for this is- um- sorry.”

Nott sighs as she twirls her hold on the dagger and grips the hilt instead,

“Blood. Our blood.”

“Fuckin’ _really_?” 

“Yes, I’m sorry. It acts as a catalyst. See, it’s based on- there’s an emotional bond. I can feel an emotional bond, between Caleb, and each of you.”

“I’ve known him a _week_.” Beau grumbles, and Molly nods along with her,

“Be that as it may,” Lucy gives a small, knowing smile, “There is an emotional bond. Nott, yours is the strongest, so you will be doing the actual application, but using multiple bonds helps to strengthen the catalyst of the reaction.”

Nott goes for the palm of her hand, and Molly reaches over to smack her,

“Don’t be stupid.” He tells her, “If you need to shoot, you need that hand. Go for your arm, or- or the _back_ of your hand.”

Nott cocks her head and Molly looks away from her piercing gold gaze.  
She does as he advises, though, cuts a line down the back of her hand and hands the dagger to Beau so that she can hold the gauze in that hand instead, she waits for her blood to drip carefully onto the potion-soaked piece.  
Beau goes next, jabs the soft tip of her little finger and holds, waits for it to drop.

“Interesting place.” Nott raises her eyebrows and Beau scowls.

“Bindings kinda prevent hands and arms, and I use my middle and index fingers to sense for reverberation. Best choice.”

“Smart.” Molly reaches out and snags the dagger from her, “Lucy, how much blood helps?”  
  
“A few drops is enough.” Lucy says gently, “Not too much. Don’t want _you_ on the sickbed too.”

There’s a smile and a hint of a joke and Molly doesn’t smile as he wipes Nott and Beau’s blood from the edge between his fingers and gives a flash of light jumping from the reflection of the blade before there’s a thin cut down his arm and he holds it out to drop onto the gauze, mingling with that of his friends.  
There’s a soft crimson shimmer, as he pulls his arm back, barely noticeable against the colour of the blood or the red of his eyes.

The wound clots over, the blood congeals, and there is no longer any leaking. Beau and Nott are so focused on Caleb that they don’t notice as their wounds do the same.

“Now, Nott,” Lucy guides Nott’s hands to the back of Caleb’s wounded one, “You lay it over the wound. Beau, if you could hold his other hand…”

“What should I do?” Molly asks softly. Lucy looks over her shoulder at him and leans over to whisper,

“ _Kiss him._ ”

Molly startles.

“I can’t. He’s not awake, I can’t ask-”

“Then kiss his forehead. Anything will work. Any sign of affection.” she says seriously, “Nott, put the gauze over the wound, potion side down. That’s it, there. Now, don’t jump.”

“What?” Nott gets out, before Caleb is bathed in light. The blue of the enchanted grass is drowned out with the force of gold, crimson, and cobalt that pours in waves from the back of Caleb’s hand and Molly closes his eyes against the whirl as he leans down and places his lips against the skin of Caleb’s forehead, shocked to find that he is already losing his fever, the frown that has creased his brow has smoothed.

It takes a few moments for the colours to die away, and Nott finds herself breathing heavily. They all do.

“He will need sleep.” Lucy’s voice is gentle as she leans over and bandages the gauze to Caleb’s wound, “You can stay the night, if you wish. Lief can make soup. I can make tea.”

“Well, now, we’d appreciate that. Thank y’ kindly.” Fjord drawls from his place pressed to the wall.

“And by the way, Yasha.” Lucy straightens and dusts herself off, smiling, “There’s no need to pray to me to get through the Woods. They do as they will, I am here only to guide travellers through fate. Some people seek to harm, and they are the ones that find themselves lost.”

“But- Van-?”  
  
“A premonition of you meeting our Albatross.” She looks to Molly, resting his forehead to Caleb’s, “Your bond with Van must be strong to receive personal messages.”

Yasha rubs her arm awkwardly.

“It is.”

That’s all they get on the matter, Lief and Lucy disappear into the kitchen, and the group settles down for the night around the faint magical light under the cauldron.

 

 

 

Caleb wakes, as always, at dawn the following morning. His whole body aches something fierce, and there’s an itch on the back of his right hand that is bugging him. His brain calls up images of the previous day, of the Solancythys, of the thorn raking across his hand as he fell.

How the _fuck_ is he still alive?

He shifts, and finds Molly’s fingers threaded with his own on his injured hand, there’s gauze bandaged to the wound he knows is there, Molly is curled on Caleb’s left with an arm on his chest, and a leg slung over Caleb’s own, his head on Caleb’s shoulder.  
For a moment, Caleb thinks that he should move, loose himself from Molly. But his fingers between Molly’s flex, and he realises that he actually _likes_ this. Likes Molly this way.  
He shifts and shuffles carefully as he can and winds his good arm around Molly, smiles weakly when the latter cuddles closer.  
It’s been a long time since Caleb has slept after dawn and before dusk, but he hurts, he’s tired, and Molly is curled up on him in a way that makes Caleb _not_ want to wake him.

That’s unusual too.

The only one he takes that much care with is Nott.  
He shifts a little more and turns, near impulsively, kisses the top of Molly’s head.

“You are a sweetheart.” Caleb murmurs softly to him, closes his eyes, and falls asleep there with his face pressed into Molly’s sweat-damp hair.

 

When the group wakes, it’s within minutes of one another to the smell of food from Lucy’s kitchen, and the gentle clanking and jingling of bells as Lief shifts the cauldron from over the magical fire pit to the side of the room, returns to set something large and rectangular over the stones. It looks to be a slab of wood, a makeshift tabletop, and he sits calmly at one side, nodding at each of them as they rub their eyes and wake up.

Caleb and Molly are among the last to rise, Caleb first, and he refuses to move until Molly stirs at his side.

“Morning.” Molly yawns, tilting his head up, and finds himself nearly nose-to-nose with Caleb.

Caleb blinks in shock.

“I- ah- morning. I am alive?”

“Sit up with me. Yes, you’re alive.” Molly stretches as he sits up beside Caleb, goes to withdraw his hand from its place laced with Caleb’s bad one, and feels Caleb grip a little tighter. So he stops pulling.

“How- that was Solancythys. Nobody has survived the Solancythys plant before-”

“Not true.” Molly smiles a little, exhaustion colouring the bags under his eyes a mottled indigo, “There was Jasper.”

“But he- oh.” Caleb looks, for the first time, around the room, “He was with the Witch of the Woods.”

“Yes, it’s really rather fortunate that our Albatross could find me.” Lucy smiles down at them as she enters the room with a tea tray, finds herself pleasantly surprised when the rest of the travelling party scrambles in to sit around the makeshift table. Caleb and Molly finally let go of one another to join them, though when they sit, Molly finds Caleb’s hand pressed to his and re-laces their fingers comfortably.

Nott comes up on Caleb’s other side and leans against him.

“We were worried.” she tells him softly, her voice hoarse, “I thought you were going to die.”

Caleb looks down at the red line across the back of her hand,

“You hurt yourself.” He says gently, and Nott flashes a look at her hand,

“Oh. Yeah, it’s fine! It was for…” she pats the back of his injured hand with light fingertips, and his eyes widen,

“You gave your blood for me?”

“So did Beau. And Molly.”

Caleb looks around to Molly, trying to hide the cut down his arm with his free hand and Caleb shifts to take that one too, catches sight of the thin line and looks back up to Molly’s face. And then over to Beau, between Keg and Yasha and ignoring him.  
He says nothing, just looses one hand from Molly to wind around Nott’s shoulders, tightens the other in Molly’s grip, and sits quiet whilst Lucy pours the tea.

 

They leave later that day with renewed rations and another dose of the blue-green potion in a little bottle, just in case.

Beau, almost as soon as they’re out of sight of the shack, scales a tree with cat-like nimbleness. Keg watches her with eyes wide, blown in awe and, when Jester skims the surface of her mind, _attraction_. She nearly collapses in cackles, Fjord has to duck to hold her up, and Keg is distracted. Beau scrambles to the top of the tree and looks over the canopy of leaves, scans for any sense of where to go, and sees only tree after tree after tree.

“Coming down.” She calls, and then jumps.

“Idiot!” Fjord manages to bark before Keg is shifting her attention back to Beau, throwing her hands out toward Beau’s descending form and loosing a burst of ochre light from her palms. Nott steps up alongside her, eyes a blazing gold, she twists her hands in the air.

Between Keg’s gravity manipulation, and Nott’s telekinesis, they lower Beau safely to the ground, smiling smugly that her plan has worked.

Keg steps toward her thunderous, every footfall hits another raised step of dirt until she stands eye-to-glowing-eye with Beau.

And backhands her.

“I stand behind that sentiment.” Fjord adds as Beau falls to her ass in the dirt, a hand over her cheek and staring up at Keg.

Jester blinks, a faint pink glow, and a grin splits her face as she skims Beau’s surface thoughts.

“What?” Molly leans in to whisper, and Jester claps quietly,

“Beau thinks she just fell in _love_!”

 

 

Molly ends up with Caleb hefted into a piggyback as the time grows toward the afternoon. He’s still weak and trailing, and they reach a point that he’s holding them all back so Molly decides it’d be easier.  
Caleb falls asleep on him just before dusk.

“You know you’re staying with us tonight, right?” Nott looks up at Molly, completely serious, “You can’t leave him.”

Molly finds himself full of relief. He forces a groan,

“Not with my handsome roommate? Fjord, did you hear that? Fjord? Fjord, did you hear me call you handsome?”

“I heard y’.” Fjord muses from beside him, “Y’can stop pretendin’, though, don’t think anyone here really cares.”

Molly tilts his head, marginally confused,

“Hey Fjord?” he says, lilts a little, “We have fun, I know, but- you are handsome.”

“Molly.” Fjord just about keeps the growl at the end of his voice, “Enough.”

Molly shuts his mouth, but something about the exchange sits weird with him.

 

He curls up with Caleb that nights and thinks, for a moment, about how nice it would be to do this every night. About how wonderful it would be to cuddle Caleb like this- like they’re- like- something.  
Caleb nestles close to Molly in the cold night air, and Molly bundles him up, kisses his forehead.

Nott is out on watch. They’re alone.

“I like you.” Molly says quietly, to the sleeping man in his arms, “And it scares me.”

Time passes, and Molly doesn’t close his eyes. He watches Caleb’s chest rise and fall against him, each little twitch of his eyelids, and with every passing second, Molly feels his heart tighten.

“Oh, dear.” Molly murmurs, “Oh no.”

Caleb makes a soft whining noise and wriggles closer to Molly, wriggles closer to the warmth, tucks his face to Molly’s chest, in the gap between the furls of his shirt, presses his cheek to skin.

Molly gives a soft, emphatic, “ _Fuck_.”

For the first time, he lets himself realise.  
He’s fallen quick and hard for Caleb.

He’s in love.

 

Molly doesn’t know when he falls asleep after that, but it feels like he’s awake forever, his heart beating in his throat and wrapped around Caleb tight and warm.  
He wakes in the morning, Caleb is still asleep against him, and Nott is sitting up on the other side of the tent, fiddling.

“Morning.” she whispers to him, and he gives a soft hum in return. Caleb stirs, under his arm, and Molly sucks in a breath.

An arm winds around his waist, warm and tight and deliberate.

“Good morning, Mollymauk.” Caleb says, from somewhere near his chest, “Morning, Nott.”

“Good morning, Caleb.” She chirps back, “I’ll go and get a pot of tea ready.”

“Thank you.”

They hear Nott scramble away, and then, and only then, does Caleb draw back. He keeps an arm around Molly, draws back just to see his face and finds Molly smiling at him when he catches his eye.

“I have not said anything,” Caleb says quietly, slowly, deliberately, his voice measured, “Because- be- because-”

“You know,” Molly interrupts gently, brings a hand up to sweep the hair back from Caleb’s face, “You don’t need to justify yourself to me. You don’t need to tell me.”

Caleb sighs gently.

“I want to.” He admits, “I think. But I am not ready.”

Molly leans in and kisses Caleb’s forehead.

“Whenever you are. We have all the time in the world. And by that, I mean about two more weeks before we get to Siedhelm.”

Caleb closes his eyes and takes a deep, steadying breath.

“Your secret, at least, is safe with me. You do not have to worry, it does not change the way that I think of you.”

There’s something else behind that, Molly thinks. But he remembers the last time that he tried to pry information from Caleb, and lets it go.

“How are you this morning?”

“I feel far better today.”

Molly takes his hand, the injured hand, carefully and lifts to kiss his knuckles. Where his lips touch, there’s a soft ripple of crimson, and when Molly’s magic scours his blood, checks for toxins, he finds nothing.  
Well, nothing but low blood sugar, but that’s to be expected of a morning.

“You need that tea.” Molly says softly, Caleb feels his lips brush his skin when he talks and flushes just a little, “And where’s Frumpkin?”

“With Calianna.” Caleb smiles, what a beautiful sight, “He has taken quite a liking to her, and an aversion to Fjord. It seems that flash-freezing a plasma companion is the quickest way to kill them.”

“I am still,” Molly sits up, “ _really_ sorry about that.”

Caleb sits up beside him, chuckling,

“Molly, it’s fine. It’s okay. I do not mind.”

Molly stops, cocks his head at Caleb, and lets the silence draw for five or so seconds.

“I- ah- did I say something-?” Caleb starts, and Molly hushes, reaches out and cups Caleb’s cheek gently,

“You called me Molly.”

Caleb tries to pretend he isn’t pressing into Molly’s hand.  
He fails.

“It’s Molly to your friends.”

 

Molly kisses him.

 

Doesn’t even think about it, just can’t process any other alternative, leans in brief and chaste and presses his lips to Caleb’s. It lasts a split-second, Caleb’s lips are dry and chapped and warm and _perfect_ and then Molly is dropping away spitting curses and apologies and scuffling backwards into the waxed canvas of the tent with wide eyes.

“Please don’t run away again.” Molly says, pressed as hard to the fabric as he can without tearing the whole tent down, knees pulled to his chest.

He looks like a frightened child.  
Caleb reaches a hand out toward him, a gentle frown across his brow,

“Molly?”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t think, I didn’t ask-”

“Molly.” Caleb’s voice is firmer, “Come back.”

Molly shakes his head, draws his knees back to his chest.

“Molly.” Caleb tries to soothe, “ _Molly_.”

Something about _Molly_ helps. It’s not Mollymauk. It’s _Molly_.

Caleb still considers him his friend.

“Do you want to pretend this didn’t happen?” Caleb asks, voice and eyes criminally soft.

Molly doesn’t.  
Molly wants the sensation of that kiss to last forever.

“Do you?” he asks instead.

Caleb hesitates, hand still outstretched,

“If it means,” he says slowly, “That you will come back here… then yes. I would like to pretend.”

Molly, immediately, crawls messily over to him and Caleb makes soft, soothing noises as Molly winds his arms around his neck and buries his face in the crook of his neck.  
He feels Caleb’s arms wind up around his waist and pull him close and tight, sighs hard against his skin.

“It never happened.” Caleb murmurs, and Molly feels a twinge inside of him, crushes it down,

“What never happened?”

Caleb smiles.

“I am glad to have you.”

Molly lets the tension drain completely from him, from his shoulders, he slumps against Caleb.  
And he doesn’t reply.

 

 

It’s been long enough when they emerge that they expect Nott to be waiting and impatient with the tea.  
Instead, they find her chattering quietly to a tall, gaunt… man? A creature with blue-grey furred skin and a pink undercut, the long side dragging past his chin, shockingly clean and light considering the rest of him looks like he’s rolled down a large, damp forest hill.  
He’s spotted with pink lichen, his pack rests in the pile with the rest of the group’s, his armor strapped to it just as Keg’s is.  
Their new companion is carefully tipping a colourful mixture from a little bowl into the tin teapot, and Nott grins as she looks up and finds Caleb and Molly standing shoulder-to-shoulder, watching her.

Behind them, out of sight of their companions, Molly’s fingers are hooked around Caleb’s.

“Caleb! This is mister Clay, he’s helping with the tea.”

“Well,” Clay drawls with a sleepy smile, “I don’t doubt Lucy’s abilities, but a detoxifying tea can help all kinds of ailments.”

“Ah- thank you. I am unfamiliar with new blends, but I- I’m happy to try-”

Clay inclines his head to him, to Nott, and shuffles off to sit by the campfire, burning in the pit in the middle.

“We just keep picking up waifs and strays, hm?” Molly asks jovially, and Caleb gives a peep of laughter.

 

 

 

“You know, sometimes,” Caleb says softly to Molly, they sit around the campfire yawning following another exhausting day of travel, “Sometimes, I wish that I was a- a- a Spirit Mage, like Jester. I feel that it would… help.”

“With what? Thank you.” Molly takes his and Caleb’s shared cup of tea from Clay as he hands it to them with a soft smile.

It turns out that Clay, whilst a little… creepy, is pretty nice. He and Molly are taking the first watch, a fact that Caleb is quietly bitter about.

“With my brain.” Caleb shakes his head gently, and stops to take a sip as Molly offers the cup to his lips.

“Ah, being able to know the truth?” Molly smiles, and Caleb’s lips curve against the edge of the cup before he presses his fingertips to Molly’s leg, signalling for him to lower it. Molly draws it in and sips himself.

Honeysuckle. Nice.  
He didn’t know you could _make_ tea from honeysuckle.

“Knowing when people are lying to me, knowing their true feelings about me, I feel that it would allay some of my anxiety and paranoia.”

Molly wants to tell him that he won’t lie to him.  
To tell him he’ll always be honest.

He opens his mouth to say as much, and then the sensation of Caleb’s lips against his comes back and he knows that if Caleb asked him if he wanted that again, he would have to lie, he would have to say no, just to stop Caleb from running.

He shuts his mouth.

Caleb isn’t looking at him. Caleb is looking into the fire like the terrifying brightness there will answer the questions of life for him.

“Hey, Keg?” Molly calls over, and Keg raises her head from its place near bumping Beau’s,

“Yeah?”

“Don’t s’pose you have any more cigarettes?”

She comes stomping over to hand him one, her expression halfway between sour and, maybe, a little concerned.

“It’s fine.” He assures her, and hands her a gold piece for her trouble. She frowns as she takes it, but between the aura she’s trying to give off, and Beau watching her from the other side of camp, there’s little she can do. She pockets the gold, gives a gruff _thanks_ and shuffles back to sit between Yasha and Beau.

“Darling?” Molly bumps Caleb gently, and Caleb snaps his fingers without looking, holds his hand out to Molly, a flame dancing on the tip of his index finger.

Molly lights up.

“Want to share?” he asks Caleb, after the first drag, and Caleb’s little flame peters out.

“I- ah- _ja_. One of us should hold the cup-”

“Here.” Molly hands the cup of tea, half full, over to him. There’s a ripple of orange as Caleb re-heats it and takes a sip.

They spend the next few minutes alternating between tea and smoking, Molly holding the cigarette to Caleb’s mouth so he can drag, Caleb lifting the cup for Molly to drink.  
Nott watches from her place by the fire with her eyes glowing, just slightly. She’s staying deliberately out of Jester’s softly pink glowing range, can’t afford to lose her wariness to the aura of positivity she’s giving out

She’s not _entirely sure,_ but she thinks that Molly and Caleb might be _flirting_.

“Deuces?” she says low to the newest party member as he strains another cup of tea for himself.

“Hm?”

“Can I take the watch with you tonight, instead of Molly?”

“Eh- sure. I don’t mind, you’ll have to talk to them about it.”

Nott huffs a sigh.

“I’ll spring it on him, he won’t argue.”

Clay hands her a cup of tea.

“I look forward to it.

Nott doesn’t like tea. But she finds that she quite likes Clay, so she sips it anyway, and finds it… pleasantly sweet. Delicate.  
Oh. Well, okay.

“Will there be more of this tonight?”

Clay looks her over with a soft smile and ducks to press his fingertips to the earthen floor, lets out a quick ripple of pink, and Nott watches in awe as a tangle of vine-like plants climb over the log they’re sat on, sprouting little sunset-coloured flowers as they grow.

“That was impressive.” She tells him quietly.”

“There’ll be more tonight.” Clay affirms to her, “As much as there is water.”

“I’ll collect some before Fjord goes to sleep.” Nott stands and goes to dig out a bucket. On the other side of the camp, Molly throws the stub of the cigarette into the fire.

 

 

 

They break the treeline just before dusk the next day, and the celebration among them is somewhat shocking.

Clay, it seems, has not left the forest before. As easygoing as he’s been in the couple of days he’s been with them, he seems… nervous. He trails behind them and disguises his slow pace as leisurely, Keg, Beau, and Yasha keeping the front whilst Cali, Fjord, and Jester tag a few feet behind. Nott looks to Caleb and Molly, walking in tandem step, and slows her own pace to drop back beside Caduceus.

 

 

They set up camp for that night just as the sun disappears, the fire pit roars to life and Molly sits with Caleb’s head in his lap on the hard earth, stroking his hair gently back from his face.

“Because I like you.” Caleb says, softly, in the middle of their silence. And jolts, like he’s surprised himself, like he’s spoke out loud and meant for it to be in his head.

Molly knows that feeling.

“Is this another thing that we should pretend never happened?” Molly asks softly, hands stilling either side of Caleb’s head. He knows what Caleb is talking about.

Caleb blinks, brief shock and consideration and slips his hands up, twines his fingers in the shorter hair that grows in the gap between Molly’s ears and horns. There’s a gentle pressure as Caleb pulls and Molly comes, sweet and pliant, like he could be anything else in Caleb’s hands.  
He feels the muscles across Caleb’s back pull and tense as he shifts up, and despite the awkward positioning-

Caleb kisses him.

It’s not a position that can be maintained, but the briefness of the situation is good enough. As before, Caleb’s lips are hot and dry against Molly’s, pressed harder this time, if only marginally. Molly thinks his heart would sing, if he could feel anything at all right now. He’s too preoccupied with a mental block of _holy shit_ and _is this real_ and _did I die again?  
_ When he drops away again back to Molly’s lap, he smiles.

“ _Ja_.” he tells Molly softly, “It is.”

Molly blinks down at him, shock and soft and processing and Caleb’s fingers stroke gentle and blind across the tops of Molly’s ears, brushing the points and the soft hair above them.

“This is- Caleb- ah-” Words fail Molly.

“Never happened.” Caleb says, soft and sleepy and his fingers slow, his movements slow, his smile spreads and he falls to sleep in Molly’s lap, leaving the latter alone and staring.

 

Alright then.

 

He wakes Caleb only to take him to bed, goes to wake Yasha for her watch and collapses into her bed when she leaves. Across from him, Fjord cracks open an eye.

“Hey, stranger. D’you break up?”

“Never together.” Molly murmurs, curls himself into a ball, “I don’t know what’s going on, Fjord. My life is a mess.”

“Has been since y’ woke up, Moll’, don’t think it ever won’t be.”

“Fuck off.” Molly snorts, “Go to sleep.”

Fjord obeys, snores softly, and lures Molly to follow uneasily.

 

 

They wake up in the morning to porridge courtesy of Caduceus, served from a little black cauldron that he apparently keeps in his bag.  
He ladles it out generously, cheerfully, adds a little extra to Nott and Beau’s bowls. Molly hands around his honey, and the group eats in relative silence, Molly between Yasha and Fjord, avoiding Caleb’s eyes.

“How far now, Yash?” Beau is the first to speak across the fire, and Yasha hands Molly her bowl so that she can withdraw the map.

She skims the parchment with her fingertip, humming and calculating.

“I’d guess at about a week and a half, at our current pace, assuming we stop around this time every night.”

“ _This_ time, or the same time?” Molly looks up at her with a smirk and she sighs as she tucks the map away again and snatches her porridge back.

“The same time. You know that I’m not so good with words, Molly.”

“Sorry.” Molly leans up to kiss her cheek, and she shakes her head.

“Week and a half.” She repeats louder, to Beau, who nods firmly.

“Right. Any towns along the way?”

“Two or three, we can probably avoid them if you want. There’s also the Friedash to get across, since the mountains this side are hell to climb, and then there’s the lake…”

“If- theoretically speaking- if we could traverse the mountains this side, would that expedite our journey?”

Yasha considers it,

“It would depend on how easily. It would cut about three days off our time if we could get up the mountain but-”

“We have Keg.” Caleb points out, and Keg gives a nervous laugh,

“I’m built to break things, Caleb, not make them. It’s kinda dangerous being around me-”

“Among ourselves,” Caleb cuts calmly, “We have three Clanless Mages, an Air Mage, a Fire Mage, a Water Mage, a Spirit Mage, an Earth Mage, and two sub-category Mages. We are no weak force by any stretch.”

Keg is quiet. For a long stretch, there’s the clink of spoon or fork on bowl as they eat and Keg looks at her bowl like it might swallow her.  
Awkward beside her, Beau pulls one arm up an lays it limp over Keg’s shoulders, doesn’t look at her, looks everywhere _but_ at her.

“I don’t like the idea of people relying on me.” Keg says eventually. “I don’t- I’m not good at magic.”

“You would cut _three days_ from our travel time, just by cutting us a path.” Caleb points out, “Is that not worth it? Is that not worth the    effort?”

“If someone gets hurt, that’s on _me_.” Keg rebukes, “ _Fuck_ , Caleb! That’s a lot! You’re _strangers_ and I don’t know if that makes it better or worse!” 

“I’m not a stranger.” Cali chips softly from her other side, and Keg’s head whips to her so fast Beau feels something crack.

“You’re not.” Keg agrees softly. “And that makes it worse.”

“You should think about this logically, it is a calculated risk.” Caleb pushes, “You are as eager to get to Siedhelm at the rest of us. I do not ask about your reasons, but if they are time sensitive-”

“They are.” Keg says, quiet and firm,

“Then discomfort is worth it. You could-”

“Caleb.” Beau cuts him off darkly through gritted teeth, “ _Shut_ the fuck up.”

“Keg, y’ don’t gotta do anythin’ that makes you feel pressured.” Fjord soothes from the other side of the fire pit, “We’re all perfectly capable of walkin’ th’ path.”

 

Nott pulls Caleb’s sleeve as the group slips into idle, unrelated conversation.

“You were _really_ rough with her.” She says, eyes concerned, “I haven’t seen you be that way since before we met Molly.”

“ _Ja,_ well, I am thinking of the expediency and I am not patient. I need to be, but I am not.”

“You need to… not push so hard.”

Caleb is quiet.

“I know.” he says.

“I know.” Nott repeats, and pats his shoulder as she stands to clean up, “Now let’s get going.”

 

 

It’s an easy trek. They stop in at only one village on the way, the last before the mountains, and the sun is blocked quickly in the evening by the reaching peaks.  
They decide, promptly, that it would be a good idea to rent out inn rooms, to bathe if the services are there, and head for the best inn of the town.  
There is, they learn, a bath house, a communal bath house in the centre of the town, though they can be persuaded to open after dark to private parties if they have enough coin.

So they sit as a group in the inn, they all turn out their pockets, and they pool together for the rooms and bath- they rent out almost the whole inn.  
It’s a small town.  
Even paired up, that totals five rooms. There’s six in the place, and the last room- a twin room- is currently occupied by some strange raven-haired bard and a ghostly pale half-dragon. Caleb looks at them, looks at the way the bard holds himself and sings direct to his companion, and frowns. They look like they should have a double.  
It’s made everything awkward for Caleb.

“Two are twin rooms,” Caleb says as he pushes his last five gold into the pot, “Three are doubles.”

“So we gotta decide who’s sleepin’ together, who’s sleepin’ alone.” Fjord looks around the table,

“Twin.” Yasha puts her hand down with a small velvet pouch clasped, “Not double.”

“Seconded.” Nott raises a hand, Caleb nods at them both, as Jester shoots a brief grin at Fjord.

“Twin.” He says quickly, and Jester pouts.

“I have no preference.” Clay shrugs, “I’m easy to please.”

“I’ll room with him.” Fjord points, and Clay’s lips quirk into a calm smile, he sips whatever drink Molly has gotten them all. Knowing Molly, it’s probably alcoholic.

“That leaves us with double rooms.” Caleb says, and feels his throat tighten. When he looks up at Fjord and Nott, he finds them both smiling at him, and knows they’ve eased this to go the way they want.

_Arschloch_.

“I’ll stay with Cali!” Jester chirrups, “We can have a slumber party!”

Cali flushes and smiles as Jester kneels on her chair to wrap her arms around Cali’s shoulders and cuddle, giggling.

“We- uh- Keg ‘n’ I-”

“I have you, Beauregard.” Caleb looks to her with a flash of a smile and then slowly, slowly brings his eyes back to Molly.

“That leaves us one room.”

“Is it much different to what we were doing?” Molly asks, an eyebrow raised, and Caleb frowns a little.

“Anyway, we should go and bathe, now. I am sure that Deuces-” Clay pulls a face at the nickname- “Can grow us some flowers to scent our bathwater along the way.”

“I can do that.” Clay says sagely. So they down their drinks, pack up, and make their way to the bath house.

 

It takes a decent amount of coin to grease the palms of the bath house owners, but they manage it.  
Caleb had not considered that to bathe, they would all need to be _naked_.

His companions- Molly- do not seem to have a problem with it. Molly is stripping basically before they get into the changing room, pulling his shirt over his head and horns and giving Caleb a good view of his tattoos and back, scarred as the rest of him. He watches the way that Molly’s muscles flex under his skin,the way that his long, long hair tumbles down his spine, the hypnotic wave of his tail.

“Caleb.” Caduceus says softly from beside him, “You’re staring.”

“I- yes. Sorry. Thank you.”

Caduceus chuckles quietly,

“You don’t need to say sorry, it’s not a crime. I just thought you might want me to stop you before he noticed.”

“You were right.” Caleb turns away as Molly works on the laces of his boots, “He is- he is stunning and I feel that he may burn my eyes out if I look at him.”

Caleb shucks off his coat and shirt, folds them carefully and places them on the little bench as he works on his breeches and boots. Molly is still fiddling with his laces, cursing, and Fjord has managed to shed all of his armor already and jog quickly to the bath.

_Bastard_ , Molly thinks grimly, couldn’t even stop to help his friend strip.

He looks over his shoulder pathetically and finds Caleb half-naked, close to Clay, the latter’s head bowed as he peels himself out of his odd, flowing shirt. They’re talking about something or other, Caleb’s cheeks are flushed and Molly feels bitter jealousy at the back of his throat.  
Clay pulls his loose pants off easily, folds his clothes and only then does he look to Molly.

“Caleb.” he taps the Fire Mage lightly, “I think you might be needed.”

Caleb follows his finger when he points, Molly is leaning against a wall cursing under his breath as he tries the laces.

“I’ll see you in there.” Clay says gently, places a soft hand to the small of Caleb’s back as he passes, as quickly as he touches, he’s gone again.

Caleb trails slowly to Molly.

“Do you need some help?”

“I would _appreciate it_ , yes.” Molly says through gritted teeth, and Caleb doesn’t like his tone but he eases to his knees against the cold tile floor anyway and begins to work.

With a better view, it’s easier for him to tug the laces loose. Molly has tied them into a series of awkward, winding knots, it’s no wonder he can’t get them undone.  
He feels a hand settle gently in his hair, and when he looks up in shock, Molly is staring down at him with reverent affection, mouth slightly ajar.  
Caleb moves to the other boot.

“Don’t look at me that way when I am on my knees in front of you.” Caleb says, somewhere soft between teasing and stormy. Above him, though he can’t see, Molly smiles.

“It’s a pretty sight.” He replies, voice gentle and lilting, threads his fingers through Caleb’s hair and gives a throaty chuckle when Caleb presses against his hand.

“I wish that I did not enjoy that so much.” he murmurs distantly, tugs hard on the last knot and watches it spill undone. “You’re free.”

“Thank you, darling.”

Molly’s hand comes loose of his hair and he offers it to help him up instead, Caleb leans hard on him as he pulls himself to his feet.

“I should- um.” Caleb gestures to the door, and Molly’ speeds up undressing,

“Just a second! Almost done-” Molly peels himself out of his pants just as Caleb looks back to him and _oh dear_.

That was a hell of a mistake.

With the time he’s spent avoiding looking directly at him, Caleb had somewhat forgotten just how beautiful he is. Even as beat up as he is, covered in healing scratches and bruises and bedraggled, Molly is still beautiful.  
So much of Caleb is calling to him to touch, to kiss, to press but he can’t give in to that part, that majority, he needs to get to Siedhelm with his mind on the moment and the job and he turns away again.

“Got it. Let’s go.” Molly comes up beside him with a smile, Caleb feels Molly’s finger ghost over the spot that Clay had touched as he left, and then there’s an arm around his waist as they walk.

Molly holds him perhaps a little too close.  
Is it a mistake? Is his jealousy getting too much?  
Probably.

But Caleb’s boney hip brushes his with every step and he’s pushing into it, not pulling away, so Molly can’t bring himself to regret it.

 

They’re the last of their companions to arrive, and Beau raises an eyebrow at them as they near the pool. She doesn’t say anything- probably thanks to Keg, there- but stares as Molly helps Caleb into the water and slips down beside him.

“Clay?” Fjord looks over to him, and Clay hums softly as he turns over his shoulder to look at the tile.

“Hm. Keg, would you mind making me an opening? I don’t want to ruin the tiles.”

Keg sighs, taps one of the tiles and frowns in focus as she lifts it magically and sets it aside, lets Clay press his fingers to the earth and loose magic to it.  
It takes minutes for Clay to gather enough flowers to dump into the water. Whilst they wait, Jester carefully rinses out Yasha’s hair, and Molly disappears underwater, leaving an oil-spill of dark purple on the surface. When he comes back up, he’s plastered in his own hair, and Caleb chuckles as he helps to peel it back from his face.

“If you go under again, I will pull it back, so that it will be easier to comb it out afterwards.” He tells Molly, and Molly needs no more encouraging. He takes a deep breath and sinks, and Caleb feels a hand on his thigh as Molly waits under the water for Caleb to sweep his hair back and hold it.  
He jerks his leg, and Molly comes back up at the exact second that Clay dumps the lavender and primrose into the water. He manages to catch a single yellow flower, pressed to his hair, and Caleb smiles at him, twists his hair over his shoulder and Molly leans back against the edge of the bath easily, puts an arm across Caleb’s shoulders.

Caleb leans into him.

 

Yasha, Molly, and Cali have the most trouble with damp hair, their long locks holding it in. Caleb suffers similarly, ties his hair back with a little piece of wire that he keeps in his pocket once he’s re-dressed.

“Fjord.” Molly says, shifting to avoid feeling the damp patch on the back of his shirt, “Could you _please?_ ”

Fjord sighs and shuffles over, strokes his fingertips down Molly’s hair with a soft glow of sickly green, and Caleb watches wide-eyed as a trail of water drains from his hair and follows Fjord’s fingers to ball in the air.  
He throws the ball into the darkness of the village, turns and does the same to Yasha, and then to Cali.

“Y’want a quick dry, Caleb?”

“ _Ja_ , please, I would appreciate it.” Caleb looses his hair from the little ponytail and waits patiently whilst Fjord pulls the water from it.

His hair, very quickly, feels lighter and fluffier and Fjord throws the ball of water into the distance.

 

Caleb is damn near ready to drop into bed the second he gets into the room he’s sharing with Molly.

“I sleep nude.” Molly warns.

“I will take anything.” Caleb grumbles, and as the door closes, he’s shedding his coat in a pile and stripping off his boots.

“Here.” Molly says gently as Caleb, aching, winces to pull his shirt off and Molly comes up behind him and tucks his fingers under the hem, “I can help?”

“Please.” Caleb sighs, too tired and sore to consider the ramifications and Molly gently, gently pulls his shirt up and off of him.

“Do you want one of my spare shirts to sleep?” Molly steps back and joins the stripping party, pulling wildly at his shirt and boots.

He hadn’t bothered to re-lace them when he’d climbed back into his clothes, so it takes seconds. Caleb doesn’t reply to him, but he goes to dig through his bag for a clean-ish shirt anyway. He turns back to hold it out, and finds Caleb staring at him with wide eyes and half- stripped, wearing only his leggings.  
Molly chuckles softly in his throat and takes a step closer, Caleb takes the shirt.

“Thank you.” He says quietly, “You are far too kind to me.”

Molly shrugs,

“You deserve it.”

Caleb turns that kind of quiet that sets Molly’s nerves on edge.

“Caleb?” He says softly, “Are you okay?”

Caleb still doesn’t reply, just pulls Molly’s shirt on silently. When he’s sure Molly isn’t looking, he pulls the edge up and breathes in the scent of lavender and smoke that trails Molly everywhere.  
Molly catches sight of it, though, and smiles a little.

“You know those things,” he says slowly, “That we’re pretending don’t exist?”

Caleb looks up and meets his eyes in shock, drops the edge of his shirt.

“No.” He replies, and Molly’s smile only widens a little. He takes a careful step in toward Caleb, keeps their eyes locked,

“Do you think we could… maybe… keep them in this room instead?”

Caleb doesn’t step back, and Molly takes that as a positive.

“Because I’d really rather not pretend they didn’t happen.”

Another step, and Caleb finds his breath shallow and his chest hollow and light and beating.

“I liked kissing you. I liked it when you kissed me. I want to remember how that felt.”

Another, and he’s near to face-to-face with Caleb, he can feel Caleb’s breath, warm in the air between them.

“Is that okay?”

For a long and terrible terrible moment, Molly thinks that Caleb is going to run, right then and there.  
And then,

“ _Ja_.” And Caleb’s arms are around Molly’s neck and they’re _kissing_.

It feels like the first time all over again, Caleb’s lips are dry and chapped and warm and perfect, there’s a distant taste of whiskey and liquorice root on his tongue and he’s wonderful and he’s _Molly’s.  
_ Between kisses, they manage to slip and draw one another to the bed and trip over one another to clamber under the covers and wind together with a series of sleepy kisses.

 

They leave it behind in the morning.

They wake at a knock on their door and Fjord’s voice calling them up, Molly leans across and kisses Caleb gently, and they climb out of bed and dress at a leisurely pace.  
Caleb hands Molly his shirt back and kisses him.  
Molly holds Caleb’s coat up for him to slip into and kisses him when he turns.

They pause at the door.

“Keep them here?” Molly says quietly, and Caleb kisses him one last time.

“ _Ja_.”

The door is opened, the night is left behind, they walk a foot apart down into the tavern to join their friends.

  


 

 

They come up toward the final splitting point and the decision, whether Keg will take them through the dangerous areas, or if they’re spending the time to go across the river.  
Beau sees Keg’s eyes darting between the glimmer in the distance and the peaks of the mountains, worrying her lip, and then she decides.

“We’re goin’ up the mountain.” She tells Beau, first, and then calls the same to the rest of them. Beau puts a hand to her shoulder, frowning in concern,

“Are y’sure?”

“Caleb’s right. We need to get to Siedhelm as fast as possible, it’s just… carving a path. I’m good at breaking things.”

“Like hearts.” Cali chirps, maybe an attempt to lighten the mood but it falls flat, Beau pulls her hand back to herself, and they all draw quiet as they veer off the path and head up toward the mountains.

 

The first hour of the climb is relatively easy. It’s not steep or sheer, any big steps they can move together. Caleb needs Molly to tug him up, once, and has to force himself to concentrate as Molly’s hands close around his wrists and pull and they end up nose-to-nose on the edge for a split-second of blinking shock.  
And then Caleb is set aside and Molly leans down for Fjord’s hands.

 

“Alright.” Keg huffs as they approach a harder area and she straps her warhammer away, “So I’m gonna focus on magic. That means that the rest of you need t’ keep an eye out for Husks, I haven’t seen any dragon Husks around here, dragons were never really fans of Siedhelm but- uh- there were plenty of human and humanoid Husks. Nobody is really sure if they were cleared but-”

“Hey, Keg?” Molly interrupts, “Nice speech- what the fuck is a Husk?”

She looks at him, confused, and he shrugs.

“Two years.”

“Right.” She says dubiously, confused, none the wiser, “Husks are- we’re not sure. It has something to do with the Starbound, with the way they sacrificed their souls, because that happened here remember? But it is either the corrupted soul as an echo of themself in purgatory, or- y’know.” she gestures, and Molly shakes his head.

“I don’t. I really don’t.”

“Husks.” Keg says, disgust in her voice, “Empty shells. I know there are Husks around here. It’s possible to force a Husk. I don’t know how, just that they can.”

An unnatural silence settles on the group, and draws out seconds that feel like hours.

“That’s terrifying.” Molly settles on eventually, to murmured agreement, and Keg turns away from him with a frown.”

“That’s what I’m going to stop. Stand back-”

Her words are finished with a terrible cracking sound and a flare of ochre as Keg lights up like a beacon, glowing with the intensity of a small sun, something that Caleb _knows_ is representative of overexertion. A path begins to crack through the rock, a solid ten feet wide and climbing steep but stable, ochre blazes in its wake.

“Keg.” He says softly, “You will burn yourself out this way. Try thinner, less at a time.”

Keg grits her teeth against his advice and the flare around her flickers and intensifies.

“Nott.” Caleb reaches for her, “Stand by.”

The path curves some twenty feet above them, and Caleb watches as Keg strains, the glow flickers like a candle, and then goes out and Keg collapses on all fours to pant.

“Now.” Caleb advises, and Nott steps in to kneel beside her, channeling her own magic into Keg, restoring her depleted reservoirs. Jester comes up on the other side to do the same, and Caleb shakes his head.

“This is in no way a sustainable plan. It will take her at least ten minutes to recover enough to move, longer to recharge. It is nearing evening, perhaps we should set up camp here for the night. It is flat and plain, I don’t think we will find a better plateau.”

So that’s what they do. When Keg recovers enough, she manages to clumsily carve a chunk from the earth for a fire pit, and they set their tents up against the face reaching straight above them, protected by the stone from the winds around.  
In the distance as the sun goes down, they can see the lights of the town that they had left, and Molly comes to Caleb’s side and twines their fingers together.

“We left it behind.” Caleb tells him softly, but makes no move to pull away.

“Left what behind?” Molly teases, and they sit quiet together whilst Clay pulls fruit from his pack and hands it around for supper.

  


Clay and Beau take the first watch of the night. It’s past midnight, almost time for the changeover, when Beau notices a shadow too dark for the moonlight.

“Deuces.” She hisses, “You can see in the dark- there.” She lets him follow her eyes and he focuses.

It’s a shadow, alright. But the shadows around are lighter to him, he can see the shape of the rock, and this shadow is flickering and wavering and vaguely human shaped.  
And when it turns, it has eyes like coals and a mouth like an inferno and it sees them.  
And it hisses.

“Get them up.” Clay says, and his tone is so panicked- barely at all, but for _Clay_ \- Beau stands immediately and there’s a trail of blue as she uses her magic to flash-step to the closest tent.

Then another as she moves to the next, and Fjord emerges from the tent she’s just been to, already glowing up.  
The shadows are coalescing, there’s three now, then six pairs of terrifying coal-bright eyes staring at Clay and they move slowly toward him.  
He stands, as Molly comes out of the tent.

“We have guests.” Clay says, tone too calm and Keg follows his eyes.

Her hand is on her battleaxe before she can blink.

“We have Husks.” She says, feat in her voice, “We have a battle on our hands.”

The Husks charge.

 

The group has never fought together before. It’s terrifying, somewhat, to see Nott dart around and shoot from a crossbow that Molly had never noticed. Beau throws a punch at one as it gets too close, but like a ghost, her fist goes right through.

“In my pack-” Keg pants, “Silver gauntlet- just one.” Her battleaxe shimmers ochre and speeds as gravity intensifies and drags and she cuts through the smoke-like form of the shadow.

Molly pants with nerves, empties from his scimitar an empty crystal and moves to re-load, the left blade lights up with sickly green and frost trails where he swipes with it. The right blade burns with lightning in the colour of moonlight, and he slashes both in a cross formation, dissipates a Husk and another takes its place and lunges for Molly’s throat.

“Molly, _down-_ ” Caleb’s voice comes and Molly hits the floor unthinking, a jet of fire bursts over his head and returns to Caleb’s hands.

Molly looks over his shoulder to Caleb.  
He’s lit in orange, from his magic and from the fireball he holds in his hands and weaves like string, separating lines and threading it into a net shape. Molly rolls toward him, and Caleb throws the net of fire out, gathers it up and tightens and squeezes until the Husk dissipates into the air.

“Thank you.” Molly stands and kisses Caleb’s cheek as the fire surges back to his hands, and then one of Caleb’s charred palms is on his jaw and Caleb kisses him full on the mouth, in the middle of the battle, where any of their friends could see.

Molly tries to say _oh_ but it doesn’t come out in time because Caleb is being tackled by a Husk that had hidden in the shadows.

“No.” is what comes out of Molly’s mouth instead. Fire rages and the Husk is blasted apart, but it’s too late.

Caleb is tipping back over the edge of the cliff, unbalanced.

“ _Caleb!_ ” Molly screams and rushes to the edge, scimitars abandoned.

Nott looks over as the Husk looming over her is flash-frozen, sees Caleb falling and Molly outstretched and scrambles knowing her telekinesis will never get there in time, but running for it anyway, coughing words and glowing, sparking gold, trickles and trails shooting across the stone toward Caleb as his body goes over the side and then, barely five foot down, everything changes.

Molly lights up like a blood-red beacon.

The same sanguine, dripping crimson that Nott had seen the day that Caleb nearly died, all along his body, Molly reaches a hand out to empty air and Caleb is consumed in the same glowing red light.  
Molly’s eyes might well be burned out of his head, he gestures, all of himself gone in the moment he stands terrifying, unlike himself and focused, lifts Caleb like telekinesis might but not the same, like Caleb is being dragged, pulled, like his _body_ is pulling him rather than a force around him and Caleb comes.   
_Ragdoll_ , Jester thinks as she looks over, Caleb is limp and Molly is a red star in the night, steps back from the edge and pulls Caleb to him. Into his arms.

And the beacon goes out.

And they both collapse to the cold hard stone, Caleb cuddled in an embrace, and Molly bleeding from his mouth, eyes, nose, and ear. Unconscious.

 

When Nott looks around for the Husks, there are none.

“He became a Beacon.” Keg says, some kind of terrified awe in her voice, “He became a Beacon, and he destroyed them. Well.”

“Fuck me.” Beau vocalises her unspoken thought, and Keg nods dumbly along with the words.

“Is he going to be okay?” Cali asks nervously, and Nott shakes her head dismissively as she rushes over.

Fjord moves to the tents with Clay, Yasha, Keg and Beau stand watch, Cali stands shocked, and Nott pulls Jester to Molly’s side to heal him and Caleb.

“Tents are destroyed.” Fjord reports, a grimace to his tone, “A lot of the packs, too. Beau, they got yours. Yours too, Nott.”

“Caleb? Molly?” Nott asks through a gold sheen of sweat, and Fjord looks them over.

“Sorta. Molly’s was tucked away, they got t’ some of Caleb’s.

“Mine too.” Cali sighs, poking through the wreckage of the tent she’s sharing with Jester, “Jester, yours is okay.”

“They got mine.” Fjord grimaces, “Clay, you’re alright?”

“Yeah, I seal mine up good ‘n’ tight at night.” Clay pats a little mound of vines, “I’m careful.”

“Glad you are.” Beau sighs, looks over to Molly and Caleb. Nott has wiped the blood away from Molly’s face, but every time she tries to ease Caleb out of his arms, he clings tighter.

Fjord looks over, frowns, and sighs.

“What’s wrong with them, Fjord?” Nott looks up, knows he has the answer, and Fjord gestures to Clay to come over, carries the remaining packs and stacks them around Molly and Caleb.

“Molly ain’t adept with his powers just yet. He doesn’t use ‘em nearly as often as he could, so when he throws himself out for somethin’ big like that, he roughs himself up alongside.”

“Powers?” Jester asks, tilting her head, “I thought Molly didn’t have any magic.”

“He’s a Blood Mage.” Yasha comes up on Nott’s other side and doesn’t miss the ripple of people shuffling away from Molly. She frowns, “Yeah. Molly is a Blood Mage, and he saved Caleb when none of you could. He doesn’t use his magic unless he needs to. This isn’t the first time, I’m certain of it.”

“No.” Nott agrees, “He- that time with the Solancythys- he was using it then.”

“He can filter toxins from blood, though he’s not adept at it. I think that he might be able to do Solancythys one day, if he practices.”

“So it was Molly keepin’ Caleb alive?”

“It has been since they met.” Nott puts one hand to her face and rubs, “I was never good enough alone.”

“Fuck that, yeah, y’ were.” Fjord chides. Around them, plants begin to swirl and grow, a pink glow emanates from Clay behind Fjord, “You were good enough, Nott, you’re just better now y’ got other people to rely on. Ain’t no shame in it.”

Nott looks vaguely uncomfortable, and Clay looks them all over as he arcs the plants over their heads into a dome, and Beau sighs as she pushes her palms together and draws them apart with an orb of blue light between them, casts it to the top of the dome.

“There’s somethin’ bad with your friends and relying on other people.” Clay says to nobody in particular, that odd, sleepy grin on his face, “Don’t you know it’s not bad? I had nobody for the _longest_ time. At least twenty seasons. It’s been nice to rely on you all.”

“You’re relying on _us_?” Beau asks, wrinkles her face and laughs, “We’re relying on _you_. Look at this!” She gestures to the dome, and Clay shrugs, the glow fades everywhere but his left hand and he trails his fingers up the winding branches.

“I spent a long time learning plants. I get to use my powers to help, is there something bad about this?”

Little flowers grow where he touches, he paces around and Yasha sees the lavender sprouting and booming in the trail of pink he leaves behind. Pink lichen covers the wall below the skirting board of lavender.

“No.” Yasha tells him, her voice calm and soft, “It’s- it’s good. Thank you, Caduceus.”

He inclines his head to her and goes to sit by Nott at Caleb’s back. He waits for a moment of silence before curling up, lying on the hard floor against Caleb’s warm body. Nott, by his head, strokes idly over the furred edge of one of his ears.

“Thanks, Deuces.”

“Hm. We should sleep. All of us should sleep.”

“We could do with keeping a watch-” Beau tries, and Clay interrupts,

“After Molly, nothing else will bother us tonight. Never seen a Beacon before?”

“No.” Beau storms, and Clay chuckles into his own arms.

“They’re strong, but they burn you up. He’s lucky he isn’t mulch, now go to sleep.”

“I’ll sit a watch, just in case.” Nott sighs gently, “It’s okay.”

“You could ask Frumpkin?”

It’s Cali’s suggestion, Frumpkin has been laid around her shoulders the whole time, not one of them had noticed. Nott blinks at her.

“That’s a good idea. Well done.”

Cali smiles shyly as she comes to kneel and curl her long form around Jester, still sitting and glowing to Molly.  
The group settles in, Frumpkin takes his place behind Nott sitting sentinel with his tail curled around his paws, and they rest the remainder of the night in peace.

 

Molly does not let go of Caleb, even when he wakes up. He pulls him closer, kisses his hair and sobs against him, apologies and gratitudes and half-formed prayers to Alonysius and Solon and Livia, any of the Gods that will listen. Thanks for giving him Caleb, alive and breathing in his arms and then stirring and kissing him to stop him crying.

“Thank the Gods,” Molly murmurs against Caleb’s lips, brushes his hair back from his face, “You’re alive. You’re okay.”

“I was sure that I was gone.” Caleb murmurs and presses in to kiss him, “And in the moment before I blacked out, my only worry was whether or not you and the others would live through the fight. Do you know how long it has been since I could say I had only one worry?”

“You don’t, now.” Molly smiles, Caleb feels it against his lips, “All of those old worries are back.”

“I did not know that you could read minds.”

“I can’t.” Molly says simply, “I just know the way yours will work.”

And they slip into a gentle rhythm of a kiss, quiet and still and waiting for their companions to rise.

 

Clay gets up first. Caleb feels a chunk of warmth behind him shift and stand, and then Clay’s shadow falls across them and he potters out toward the curtain of loose vines and leaves the dome.  
Fjord gets up just behind him, sits and shakes Yasha’s shoulder gently, flinches away from the fistful of lightning that she throws in his direction.

“Sorry.” She grunts as she sits up, and Fjord chuckles.

“Mornin’, Molly. How’s the head? Not seen y’ burst like that before.”

Molly kisses Caleb once more before he lifts his head and squints in Fjord’s direction.  
He’s a little blurry, unfocused and dark and Molly curses.

“Fucked my eyes again.”

“Your eyes?” Caleb asks, and Molly groans as he sits up. Caleb follows his lead.

“Yeah. When I blow my powers too hard, I fuck up all sorts of blood vessels all over.”

“You were like a blood balloon.” Nott agrees sagely from behind Caleb, yawning and stretching like a cat.

“I end up partially blind for a few days. I can see things close to me, like your face, but anything further becomes a dark blobby mess.”

Caleb is quiet as he leans into him.

“You blinded yourself to save me?”

“And I would do it a thousand times.” Molly smiles and turns to try and kiss him, Caleb doesn’t move.

“It’s- no. That’s impractical. You should have let me die, what if- what if they had needed you-?”  
  
“He passed out near straight away.” Fjord shrugs, “Got you back, cuddled y’, and passed out with you in his arms.”

“That does not make it _better_!” Caleb hums, near angry, “What if something had happened to the rest of you because I had put Molly out of action with my foolishness?”

“He saved the rest of us at the same time.” Keg drags herself upright, “He became a Beacon for you, vaporised the Husks instantly.”

Molly looks from her back to Caleb, finds the latter’s eyes wide and blue and his mouth slightly ajar in shock. He has an expression of mixed awe and something like terror, and Molly cocks his head, thoroughly confused.

“Two years. Beacon?”

“Ah- _ja_.” Caleb’s hands inch out and he takes one of Molly’s, shifts the other to his cheek, “It is a rare phenomenon, the closest you may have seen is Keg, yesterday, overexerting herself to cut the path.”

“Oh, that was… impressive.” Molly turns to smile at Keg, then back to press his cheek to Caleb’s hand. Keg’s expression is stormy.

“That was not technically what we call a Beacon. It happens more under times of extreme stress and the threat of sorrow, it essentially means losing yourself to your power, and using up all of your reserves at once. I do not think you reached your full potential, I doubt you would have survived but- to be a Beacon at all, Molly…”

“You were bleeding _everywhere_.” Nott leans around Caleb to frown, concerned, “I thought you’d liquidised yourself. Actually, you sort of had.”

Molly leans in to Caleb careful and pauses an inch apart, waits for Caleb to give a hum of approval before he kisses him.

“You don’t seem angry anymore.” He says to Caleb softly when he draws away, and Caleb avoids his eyes as he shakes his head.

“I know- I know now, you couldn’t have stopped it if you tried but now there are… other issues that have arisen.”

“Such as?”

“It’s _so_ rare for someone to become a Beacon.” Nott frowns, “You need to care about them a lot. Enough to risk burning yourself up from the inside.”

Molly stares at her.  
He looks up to Caleb, still avoiding his eyes.

“Oh.” he says softly.

Caleb closes his eyes and kisses him.

 

 

“Can’t really take it down.” Fjord eyes the dome of plants, and Clay waves a hand airily,

“It can serve as shelter to anyone else that comes this way. It’s no problem.”

“It’s obvious, that’s the problem.” Keg snips back, “Where I’m going- I don’t want them _knowing_ -”

“Well, we have to get there first.” Caleb pulls Molly past by the hand, “And we should get moving, it will be warm today, and I do not want to be climbing during the peak.”

“Fine.” Keg huffs, jogs to catch up with them, and the group makes their way up the mountain.

 

Keg, at Caleb’s (grudgingly accepted) advice, works her power smarter, not harder. She splits the thin paths up the mountain in a zig-zag, and Caduceus trails vines ahead of them to hold the walls of their passage together.

Molly clings tight to Caleb’s hand and holds him close, protective and careful and Caleb, at one point, has to crane up to kiss Molly’s jaw.

“You are near tripping us up with this distance.”

What distance? Caleb’s side is pressed to Molly’s and it’s true, they’ve nearly gone sprawling already.

Molly shuffles to put some between them, walking gets easier.

“Sorry.” Molly mumbles, and Caleb squeezes his fingers reassuringly.

 

Keg clears them a plateau in the evening and near-immediately collapses in exhaustion. Caleb doesn’t blame her, she’s been working all day but- it’s still terrifying. Beau flash-steps to her side and kneels next to her, Yasha follows a little slower, and Clay, Jester, and Cali start work on the dome of plants and the fire pit and the soup for the evening’s food.

It’s carrot and potato soup, courtesy, naturally, of Clay. The carrots are purple and a little tough from the poor soil quality, but they’re carrots easily cleaned and peeled and chopped into a pot.

Keg tiredly tugs one from Cali before she can begin peeling, and crunches slowly through it. Yasha, beside her, pats her shoulder gently.

Eventually, they get the dome grown and the soup served and Nott curls up beside Caleb and falls to sleep, Frumpkin at her feet.

Cali volunteers to keep a watch- no need for pairs when they’re all cuddled in together- and the night’s rest comes easily to them.

They wake the next morning to Yasha and Keg poring over the map with Beau splayed over their legs still half asleep.

“We have about a day left, if we keep this pace.” Yasha muses, “Less than. But there’s the lake.”

“I am sure that Fjord can help with that.” Caleb chips from the other side of the dome.

“Sure can.” Fjord, face down in the dirt.

“Then about a day left.” Yasha rolls the map back up and tucks it away, and the group comes to wakefulness with the remainder of the soup from the day before, graciously re-heated by Caleb.

 

“Keg?” Caleb asks as she leans against a wall whilst they take a break. She gives a heavy sigh in response and Caleb smiles a little, “You said that you were going to stop forced Husks. What did you mean?”

Keg stares at him for a moment, and sighs again.

“There’s- I don’t know. A group. Some fuckers. They’re trying to perfect a stable Starbound, the leader, Lorenzo- he’s… megalomaniacal.”

“That’s a big word for you.” Molly teases, and Keg shoots him a glare that could kill.

“He wants the power of the Starbound for himself. So he’s putting people through experiments, and when they get too sick to be worked on, he Husks them and turns them out.”

“That’s _awful_.” Caleb frowns, “You are going to stop it? Why?”

Keg looks at the ground at her feet.

“I used to be one of ‘em.”

Caleb’s mouth snaps shut in shock and he reaches for Molly’s hand.

“I can’t get over the things I’ve done. They took someone from me when I left, and they _Husked_ them. I’m going to tear them apart, stop them doing that to anyone else, stop them stealing kids, stop them hurting people, _stop them-_ ”

With a jolt of alarm, Caleb realises that Keg is crying. He turns to call for Beau, and there’s a flash and a blazing trail before he can open his mouth.

When he turns back, to his surprise, it’s Nott at Keg’s side, not Beau. Nott leans up against her, an arm across her shoulders, and Molly pulls Caleb away from her to let her sob.

 

 

By the time sunset threatens, Siedhelm is in sight.

“We can push it and get across tonight, or we can wait ‘til morning.” Yasha tells them, shielding her eyes from the evening sun with one hand and there’s an outbreak of murmurs.

“I want to go tonight.” Keg says, heaves, really, “I need to take them down.”

Beau looks to Jester and mouths something. Jester nods, hard.

“Hey, Keg,” Beau turns to her, “D’you- uh- would y’ mind-?”

“We want to help.” Jester’s voice isn’t her usual trill, it’s concerned, she pads up beside Beau, “We want to come with you.”

“Yeah, I’m with them on that.” Clay raises a hand, “Somethin’ fiercely wrong with what they’re doing there. I can’t let it go on.”

“I want to go too.” Yasha’s statement is more to Fjord and Molly that to Keg, and Fjord sighs, but nods,

“Seems we’d be stronger in numbers. What d’you say, Keg?”

Cali comes to Keg’s side, sets a hand on her shoulder and Keg stares around at the group of strangers rallying to support her.  
People that have relied on her already. People she hasn’t let down.  
The first people in years that she hasn’t disappointed.

“What if- you could get really hurt. Are you strong enough?”

Molly gives her a sharp grin through blurry eyes, Yasha lets crackles of electric run up her arms.  
Nott tugs Caleb’s sleeve.

“We’re going too, right? We’re helping?”

“We can’t, really- Nott, we have things to do here.”

“They’re things that can wait another day. Please, Caleb.”

There’s a silence over the group.

Caleb realises that they’re watching him. Waiting.

“ _Ja_. We will help, too.”

“Then we should rest here for a while.” Keg pushes her face into her hands. “Recharge. It’s best to attack in the night, their watches are less intent.”

“I’ll grow something to eat.” Clay begins to tramp down to the lakeside, “The soil here is far better.”

 

The group rests, Keg sleeps and Beau strokes through her hair as she does, stops whenever she thinks someone is looking. They eat, they crowd together, and Jester fills all but Molly with a sense of hope and determination, washing over them in hot pink. As the moon reaches its peak in the sky, Beau shakes Keg away, and Fjord moves to the lake. The group watches as Fjord completes a complex series of gestures, and a perfect circle of ice frosts over and crystallises on the surface of the lake.

“Time,” He says gently, “To go.”

The group collects themself onto the ice, breathing deep to calm themselves as it rocks in the water and Nott helps Fjord to keep it afloat.

They skim across the water as quiet as they can possibly be, keeping low to the ice and directed by Keg to the right port to infiltrate the Sour Nest.

“Lorenzo is hell-born. First generation, under Greed.” Keg informs them as they come near, “He has some… terrifying powers. Things to look out for. Like Dragon’s Breath.”

“He’s a hell-born with _Dragon’s Breath?_ ” Molly gapes and Jester frowns over her shoulder, point at herself.

“So am I!”

“It’s stronger than yours will be.” Keg informs her, “You’ll be- what? Fourth, fifth generation?”

“Not sure.” Jester shrugs, “I never knew my father.”

“So it’s on his side?”

Jester shrugs again.

“My mother was hell-born, but she was _red_. So…”

“This is a tavern conversation.” Fjord interrupts to chip, “We need t’ focus. What kind of Dragon’s Breath?”

“Ice.” Keg replies quickly, “And it’s _strong_. I’ve seen it kill people.”

“Noted.” Fjord replies sagely, “Gettin’ close, Keg, where’re we goin’?”  
  
“There’s a port under the dock. That one,” she points, “Yeah.”

 

The Sour Nest lives up to its name in scent. The patrols are thin, the battles they get into are quick, Caduceus leaves their bodies behind being overtaken with mushrooms and they move behind Keg as they slip deeper into the belly of the beast.

 

The only time that concern crosses them is in a cavern.

And to be fair, it’s a _lot_ of concern.

To the back as they enter, those with dark vision see the experiments chained to the wall by their wrists, a foot from the floor and covered in wounds. Most look half dead. Some are entirely dead.  
Waiting in the middle of it all is a small, ragtag band of people that have Keg’s eyes wide in her head.

“Causing chaos up above again, Keg?” One rough voice cuts over the others and a tall, blue creature takes a step forward, the band parting for him like the oceans at the whim of magic.

Caleb sees Keg’s shoulders pull back, her weapon glimmers with ochre.  
And she charges him with a scream of _“Fuck you!_ ”

There’s bursts of magic near immediately and Molly grabs Caleb’s shoulder and turns him into a quick, hard kiss.

“Molly-” Caleb gasps as they draw apart, hands aflame and eyes glowing orange and Molly smiles a little for him, eyes wide and desperate and rimmed with the first hint of tears,

“Hey,” He says, and squeezes Caleb’s shoulder marginally tighter, “I love you. Just- you know, if we don’t both get through this battle. I want you to know I love you.”

Caleb extinguishes and lifts a hand to Molly’s cheek and leans in to kiss him back.  
But he doesn’t say it.  
He can’t say it.  
And that’s fine.

Molly pulls away from him and spirals into the fight with his scimitars lit, and Caleb calls fire from his fingertips to follow his lead.

 

It’s a surge of a battle.

Keg takes Lorenzo on alone, he disappears and warps the space around them and the fear on her face matches the rivulets of sweat dripping down her forehead as she turns in a whirling pattern, a blind attempt to hit him.  
Caleb can’t deal killing blows. He knows that he can’t. But he can roar and terrify and weaken and let Nott put the finishing arrow between their eyes with no problem- he just won’t kill with his flames, and without his flames, he is nothing.  
  
They down two, working together, and Caleb turns to catch sight of Lorenzo coming down on Keg from behind. He gives a shout and aims like a bow and arrow, feels the recoil as he lets a bolt of flame free and gives the briefest smile as it strikes true on Lorenzo’s chest, a flaring scar across his heart.  
He ducks just in time to let Nott hop across his back, huffs as he stands and spots Lorenzo disappearing into mist again, leaving behind a spray of blood as Keg catches his arm with the edge of her battleaxe.

“Good hit!” He calls to her as he moves, smoke blossoming from his feet as they strike the floor, thinning through the cavern and- as Caleb had predicted- revealing Lorenzo’s position in the room.

He fires off another globule of fire as Lorenzo curses and drops the illusion of invisibility.  
It glances off his leg as he lets a burst of light forth from a crystal, and Caleb sees Keg’s eyes go wide.

“Cover!” She calls loudly to them, and they call drop, expecting a freezing wind.

They are met with a laugh.

“Keg, Keg, Keg,” Lorenzo chides, “I see no need to waste my energy on something so expensive when I can just…”

Caleb sees a sheen of blue on his eyes, and it’s reflected in Keg’s.

“Control you.” Lorenzo slips down, “Move you, like a chess piece. You like your new friends?”

Keg’s eyes are stained that glowing blue, but she doesn’t reply, looks like she’s struggling against herself.

“I _said_ ,” Lorenzo repeats dangerously, “ _Do you like your new friends?_ ”

“ _Yes_.” Keg chokes out against her will, her fingers spasming around her weapons. Lorenzo twirls a finger, forces Keg’s chin up to face and follow him as he falls.

Caleb hears the death choke of someone falling prey to Molly’s scimitars.  
  
“Which one’s your favourite?” Lorenzo’s tone is playful, like he’s taking _pleasure_ from this.   
  
“ _Beau-_ ” Keg gasps, “ _Yasha-_ ”   
  
“Aw, how sweet.” There’s sour saccharine mocking in his tone, “Well then, which one of you is… _Beau_?”

Beau tilts her head up and raises her fists,

“Right here, fucko.”

The chuckle that Lorenzo gives chills Caleb to his fire-burnt core.

“Ah, Keg… I wonder how you’ll feel after you kill her?”

“ _No!_ ” Keg’s voice is high and panicked and her body moves without her permission, launching toward Beau with both weapons spinning.

“Oh, shit fuck.” Beau flash-steps away, out of reach of the blades, and Caleb’s eyes follow them wide and terrified.

“Fuck. Shit- um. Uh. Ah- hey!” Well, he supposes bravery is his thing now as he pours into the centre of the cavern, glowing orange in the haze of smoke erupting around him, obscuring Keg from Lorenzo’s view.

Keg heaves for breath as she feels Lorenzo’s influence dissipate, and Beau, fists raised, stares at her.

“I’m your favourite?”

“Shut- shut up.” Keg gasps for breath, “Caleb-”

The room is filling with smoke, thick and dark and Caleb stands at the centre, his chest rising and falling hard as he channels himself into it.

“Out-” is all he hears before Yasha is tackling him down. It’s not fast enough.

When Yasha throws herself off of him, his hands come to his chest and he finds a crossbow bolt there.  
When he breathes, it burns and bubbles.  
He coughs up blood. It’s in his lung. Yasha turns and looses a burst of lightning at Lorenzo, her face lit by moonlight colour, highlighting around her face. The smoke dissipates quickly with Caleb gasping on the floor.

Fjord and Molly pour in, Fjord throwing out an armful of frost at the archer that had taken Caleb down, Yasha watches it coalesce on their body and flash-freeze, they fall to the floor and Jester stamps on them as she runs past, cracks down to their core and lets them bleed out what little blood hadn’t turned to ice on the spot.

“Make way for the healer!”

The group collapses in and Lorenzo chuckles, their attentions diverted and he slips to invisibility and stalks, waits for just the right moment. The flair is too much. He’s too tempted. There’s a handful of archers pouring down here right now, he knows his team, Jester comes to Caleb’s side and pulls the bolt out with one hand, presses the other over the wound and begins to glow, blinding bright. Molly strokes Caleb’s hair from his face, murmurs to him, Keg and Beau stand guard watching for Lorenzo.

Cali and Caduceus come up in tandem step, Clay collapses on Caleb’s other side as Nott flash-steps in, and his blue-furred hands join Jesters over the wound, twin trails of pink filling Caleb’s body. Cali clings to Frumpkin desperately, presses his glowing form against her body as he flickers with his maker’s life force.

“Archers.” Keg warns, “Jester, you need to forcefield-”

“I _can’t_!” Jester barks, “I’m stopping Caleb _dying_ -”

There’s too many. They’re all around the room. There’s too many, too many arrows, Molly looks at Caleb’s wide and frightened eyes, around at the room, hears Lorenzo’s cackle in his ears and feels the chill of the room, the blue glow and the terror as he realises they’re all within perfect striking range for Lorenzo’s Dragon Breath and there’s no way Caleb will survive. That any of them will survive.

  
That’s enough.

  
Molly stands and roars over Caleb, protective and terrified, and there’s a plume of thick, sanguine light as he bursts, throws all of his soul into it and damn near blinds the people around him, waves his arms in a wide arc and with what little they can see, his friends watch each archer in turn collapse, bleeding from every orifice possible, twitching and spasming on the ground as they slowly liquidise. Their crossbows fall across the ground, skittering, and the blue light of the Dragon’s Breath flares strong and disappears as Lorenzo falls to the ground, visible, blood bubbling at his mouth. He claws toward them, toward the Beacon of light that is Mollymauk Tealeaf, each inch sees his insides becoming less and less solid. He stops moving, the light goes on, Yasha sets a hand carefully to Molly’s leg and winces against the burn of his magic.

“He’s gone.” She says gently, there’s no way he could hear over his screams but she speaks anyway, “They’re gone. We’re safe.”

The light fades. The red glow dulls. Molly’s form sags and dims and they see blood pouring from his eyes and ears and nose and mouth.  
He collapses backwards and Caleb gasps and struggles upward and crawls over Molly’s body, heaving for breath with one and a half working lungs.

There’s so much blood.

Molly is covered in it.

Caleb can’t see his chest moving.

He presses two fingers insistently to Molly’s neck, already knows, chokes on his own sobs.

There is no pulse. Molly’s heart, should it still be solid inside of him, has stopped. 

He’s laid, spread on the cold stone floor and leaking crimson around him with no heartbeat to back it up.

“No.” Caleb murmurs, “No- to save us- _Molly_.”

He swipes the blood away from Molly’s mouth and leans down to kiss him.

“I’m _sorry_.” He whispers against Molly’s lips, “I love you. I’m sorry, _no_ , you cannot- you cannot be-”

“Caleb, he’s dead.” Beau says, her voice uncharacteristically, painfully gentle and far away, “He’s dead, you can’t do anythin’, Jester’s not strong enough for… all that. I’m sorry.”

“He _can’t_ be gone. I refuse to accept it! I refuse-!”

His magic bursts around him. Bright orange and burning, flames and fire and glow- bright, blinding glow, Caleb sobs over Molly and each droplet burns like lava down his face and onto Molly’s.

“I will not accept it. You can not be gone.” A gruff murmur, and he presses his lips to Molly’s in the explosion of light.

 

Molly’s body turns to ash under his lips.

 

Caleb is too far gone to notice.

Light pours from him all over, his mouth and nose and ears and eyes, just as blood had poured from Molly. At his back, two huge, fiery wings sprout and grow magnificent and birdlike and they curl around Caleb, like a cocoon, protecting him from the ashes of a wonderful soul that he had loved. The light burns brighter, brighter, blinds them and they shield themselves and then all Caleb knows is darkness as the light- and Frumpkin- peters out, dissipates and leaves him behind.

 

 

 

“D’you think it’s acceptable t’ keep his ashes in an urn?” Fjord’s voice is distant, “That’s what you’re s’posed to do but- come on. Circumstances.”

“Shush up and carry.” Jester’s voice comes closer, exhausted and harsh, tense, “There’s a lot of dead and dying people, we should have brought a cart.”

“How’s Caleb?” Beau.

“He’s… breathing.” Nott, and she presses a hand gently to Caleb’s forehead, “I think the fever was- well, either the burns, or the magic.”

There’s a silence that stretches, the feeling of walking exhausted.

“Almost there.” Keg’s voice is small and broken, “There’s a panel into an abandoned apothecary up this way. Inn just down the street, medical centre past that. We can split up.”

“I don’t want to be split up tonight.” It’s Beau’s voice, shockingly, “I don’t- I don’t want you thinking I care, ‘cause I definitely do- do not. Don’t. Don’t care-”

“Beau.” Yasha’s voice is kind and warm, “ _Shut_ the fuck up.”

“Where’d you even put his ashes? I saw you collect some but…” The thickness has gone from Beau’s tone, she’s sniffed it away.

“Clay made a flower that looks like a cup. They’re in there.”

“It’s especially helpful for collecting water.” Clay sounds, as always, unbothered. There’s a shift as he hefts his grip on Caleb a little tighter, “But it can be just as useful for collecting the remains of a loved one.”

“When they’re not _mulched_.” Nott grumbles, and Clay chuckles, a warm, deep rumble in his chest.

“When they’re not mulched.” he agrees.

“Panel.” Keg warns, and there’s a distant sound of grunting as someone- presumably Cali- pushes hard at the latch and it springs open with a thud.

“Right,” Fjord has the leaderly quality to his tone, “Cali, you, Clay, Nott, and Beau can take ‘em to the inn and get our rooms. Rest of us’ll drop the townsfolk off at the clinic, then join y’.”

“Okay, mister Fjord!” Cali chirps, and there’s distant murmurs as the group splits in two and Caleb loses consciousness again.

 

He comes to in a bed. There’s clean, fresh-smelling cotton sheets over him, Nott is milling around lighting candles, Keg and Beau are sat against a single bed leaning on one another, and _just_ at the edge of his vision, he sees Fjord and Yasha with a basin.

There’s a white flower the size of Yasha’s fist sitting beside a lantern on a table and Caleb feels sick to his stomach with the distant knowledge that Molly’s ashes are in there.

By the Gods, he hurts all over. It hits him all at once and he must make some noise, some odd choke, because Nott looks over and then she and Clay are on him.

“Shh.” Clay soothes, brushes hair back from Caleb’s face, “I have Jester working on a salve for your burns. They will heal.”

“Do I-”  
  
“No. Wait.” Clay interrupts Nott’s shrill worry before she can step too far, “Let the burns heal first.”

Caleb tries to ask for water but his throat is so rough, and he feels magic skim his mind, a glow of pink,

“He wants water.” Jester’s voice from his other side but he can’t summon the effort to turn. Caduceus cups his hands and rolls a ball of light for a moment before a single flower blooms between his palms, one of the white cup flowers, similar to the one that Caleb knows Molly’s ashes are in. After a brief look at Caleb’s face, Caduceus strokes a finger up the petals, and turns it blue.

“Sorry.” He says grimly, and turns to Fjord. Fjord clenches a fist and gestures to fill the cup without needed to be asked, and Caduceus comes and tips, carefully, little bits at a time. His hand at the back of Caleb’s head is soft and warm, and Caleb wriggles and frowns when he draws away.

Clay chuckles, hands Nott the flower and sits on the floor at the head of the bed.

“We’ve been worried about you. It’s been a couple of days.”

_Days?_ Caleb’s head spins. He can’t believe he’s been out so long, and then Clay’s hand is on his hair pulling it back from his face and he can’t think at all, lost to the pleasant static of contact. It’s almost enough to drown out the soggy, sleepy grief of Molly turning to ash under his kiss.  
There’s the depression of the bed as Nott climbs up beside him and curls into a perfect Nott-sized space by his legs. She settles wordlessly to sleep, but she never has needed words with Caleb. They just know one another, intrinsically.

“I finished the salve.” Jester’s voice says softly, and the bowl levitates into view a few seconds later, surrounded by hot pink that dissipates when Clay takes hold of it.

“Alright, Caleb, I’m going to put this on the worst of your burns. They’re on your cheeks, and your left side, by your heart, and on your back.”

Caleb pulls a face.

“I know.” Clay soothes, “But it’ll pull the heat.”

And he dips two fingers into the paste of the bowl, a green-tinted white, and begins to smooth it gently over Caleb’s cheeks and down his neck, working across his shoulder and chest in little fragments. Where he touches, Caleb feels immediately better, and Nott’s clawed fingertips hold fast to his leg with waves of gold healing, her eyes shine up at him in the same light and she smiles.

“Everything’ll be okay, Caleb.”

He tries to say _no_. It won’t. Not without Molly.

Nothing comes out.

“Wouldn’t try to speak.” Clay’s voice is calm and soothing as he shifts onto the bed to sit with a knee either side of Caleb, smoothing the salve over his shoulder blades, “I don’t think you can, anyhow. You burned up a lot, Caleb.”

Caleb closes his mouth and zones out. Doesn’t even process the information. Just lets it sit there, like oil on the surface of his calm water mind, waiting for the drop of emulsifier to begin to tear him apart in rivulets.

It doesn’t come. But under the light pressure of Clay not quite sitting on him, of Nott’s healing, of the salve taking the ache from his burns, what comes instead is sleep. Black and empty and blessedly welcome.

 

“He’s asleep.” Clay murmurs as he finishes up, wipes what’s left of the salve down his own shirt and climbs off of Caleb. Nott looks up to him and yawns, shows the rows of needle-sharp teeth she packs.

He smiles at her and sits back in his place by the head of the bed, nestles against the top of Caleb’s pillow and closes his eyes on the world, the rest of the group fading away.

 

Caleb wakes in the middle of the night, writhing.

Nott goes tumbling off of the bed, Clay stirs awake already setting his palm to Caleb’s cheek.

“Hey, you with me? You’re alright. It’s alright.”

Caleb calms, Nott climbs back up, and anyone who had woken up goes back to sleep. Caleb clings to Clay’s arm as he goes to pull away, so Clay keeps his hand there, cuddles back to the cushions, and sleeps.

  
  


Caleb wakes again calmer, to an arm across his waist and a blue-furred hand on his cheek and an ache in his heart he fears will never be soothed.

Someone in their group is cuddled close to Caleb’s back, an arm over him and their breath at the back of his neck and he wants to cry with how much he misses Molly, but no tears will come.  
It’s early, just after dawn judging by the grey light. Nott is warm against his legs, Clay is warm by his head, and the arm over his waist burns like hellfire.  
He slips Clay’s hand from his face so that he can cry, shaking silently with sobs and choked half-breaths, he rubs his eyes as vigorously as he can.

Whoever is cuddling him from behind shifts and wakes with the vibration, Caleb can’t bring himself to stop.

“Hey, hey.” there’s a voice too familiar, too aching. The person behind him pushes up a little, Caleb feels the depression and then there’s a curtain of dark purple curls, “Why the tears, darling? What’s wrong?”

It’s a mirage. It must be. Molly _died_ , Caleb watched him die, Caleb watched- _felt_ his body turn to ash at his kiss. They have a flower full of his ashes on the table. He can _see it_.

“Sweetheart, I know you can’t talk,  but you can at least look at me.”

It’s Molly. Hair a waterfall cascade of gnarled curls and knots, looking sick and tired but his eyes bright red, his smile wide, and shockingly tattoo-less. It’s an odd sight, not one that Caleb likes on him, he’s sure it can’t be real.

“There you go. Good boy.”

_Molly?_ Caleb tries to say and fails, but his mouth makes the shapes and the arm shifts from his waist to brush hair out of his eyes and cup his cheek. Molly leans down, his eyes flicker shut over the bright red of his eyes, and he kisses Caleb.

It’s Molly.  
Molly is here, Molly is alive, Molly is cuddled close and pressing a kiss to Caleb’s lips but _how_?

“Questions,” Molly says softly as he draws back, “Will have to wait ‘til morning. I don’t have answers, and right now, only Jester can interpret for you.”

Molly sinks back down, careful to avoid putting pressure on Caleb’s burns, he tucks himself up behind Caleb’s ear.

“I heard you. When I was dead. I heard you tell me that you love me.”

Caleb’s throat turns dry. Dry-er.  
He will never be able to tell Molly that he loves him.

“I heard you tell me. Is it still true?”

Caleb struggles to turn, and Molly meets him halfway, catches his eyes.  
Caleb wraps Molly’s hair around his fingers and pulls him down into a hard kiss, and against his lips,

_I love you_.

Molly smiles, kisses him, and draws back,

“I love you too.”

And he settles back, an arm across Caleb, they fall back to sleep.

 

Caleb struggles and reaches for Jester when he wakes, mouths words at her, and she sighs and blinks, the pink glow of her eyes piercing even in the midday light.

“Caleb would like to know why we didn’t tell him that Molly is alive?” She looks about the room.

The first that her eyes settle on is Clay, wide-eyed and confused and he comes to Caleb’s bedside with the bowl in his hands.   
Molly is asleep, face pressed to the back of Caleb’s neck and breathing rhythmically, deep, calm, arm across Caleb’s waist.

“You didn’t know?” Clay asks as he kneels, cocks his head, and Caleb gives a wheeze that might like a laugh, what his laugh might sound like now, shakes his head gently and spreads his fingers in some sort of disbelieving gesture.

“That’s… fair.” Clay dips two fingers and gets to work gently rubbing the burn salve into Caleb’s cheeks, neck, and chest.

Caleb pulls a face, his mouth turns down at the edges and he sees a pink skim of light, again,

“How long am I going to have to do this?” Jester grumbles, “We all saw him turn to ash, Caleb, I don’t know what happened either, really.”

Clay shrugs, Fjord speaks,

“You became a Beacon for him. He did th’ same for us, he killed himself doin’ it, and- Caleb it was like a phoenix. You had these two- fuckin’ _wings_. And Molly turned to ash and they wrapped around you, and when they faded, you were lyin’ on top of Molly in a- fuck?”

“A new body.” Jester trills, coming into Caleb’s space beside Clay, “No scars, no tattoos, no jewellery. Just one-hundred-percent, brand-new Molly.”

“Probably saved him from bein’ blind, too, even if Jester’d had the revival power in her.” Fjord chuckles, and Caleb sighs softly, smiles. Jester takes his hands and begins to channel healing into him, the bonus effect of a constant link to his mind.

He struggles a little to sit despite Clay’s hands on him, finds those same hands holding her down. He thinks, instead, of Frumpkin, of questions, begs Jester for answers. Jester’s face crumples around her smile, just a little.

“Cali?” She says, softly to the room.

The cat had taken a liking to her, after all, she’d gone through both fights with Frumpkin on her shoulder and she comes, crawling sadly into view.  
Caleb frowns at the empty, completely dark spot on her shoulder usually occupied by Caleb’s cat. Clay sits back on his heels and wipes his hands on his shirt.

“I’ll do your back when Molly wake up.” he tells Caleb, and shifts back to his spot by the head of the bed, lets Cali in beside Caleb.

“He- he went out. When you- after you burst. He just fell apart.”

Caleb frowns. He pulls a hand out from Jester’s grip.  
And thinks of flame. Of calling it to his palm and to his fingertips, with the languid ease he has always had. He thinks of superheating the gases in the air and pulling Frumpkin back together in wisps.  
There is barely even a glow to his hands. More like he’s dipped it in orange tinted water and withdrawn it dripping and glossy.

Caleb’s face falls empty.

“Yeah.” It’s Fjord that speaks, comes wandering up beside Cali, “We think you burned yourself out when y’ went Beacon. Like your voice, Caleb, I- I don’t know. Clay doesn’t think you’ll be able to talk again, and if y’ _can_ use magic, it won’t be anythin’ near what you used to.”

“Wait,” Nott sits up by Caleb’s legs, frowning, “You mean Caleb can’t use magic any more? What about crystals?”

“They need some kind of magic pulse, I don’t know if you’ll be able to do that, either.” Clay says, voice apologetic and Caleb sags against the bed. The arm around his waist tightens, and Molly kisses gently at the back of Caleb’s neck, sleepy and humming and Caleb’s life might be falling apart around him, but Molly is here to hold him in his outline and Caleb wriggles and strains and, for the first time, turns himself over despite the chorus of protests from Cali, Jester, Fjord, and Nott. Clay, on the other hand, hums appreciatively and shifts closer to begin rubbing the salve into Caleb’s back.

Caleb gasps for breath, beaming despite himself at once again looking full into the face of Mollymauk Tealeaf.

He cups Molly’s cheek in his hand and draws him in for a kiss. And when he pulls away, he trails his fingertip down Molly’s neck and chest, where the peacock feathers once had splayed, on his old body.

“I know.” Molly chuckles, “I know, I need to get them re-done.”

Caleb kisses him again.

“We’ll need to look into some kind of non-verbal language.” Nott muses from her spot on the floor, “Caleb is smart. He’ll pick it up.”

“I’ll learn it, too.” Molly says, voice muffled by Caleb’s lips, “I want to know what you’re saying.”

“Without magic, though,” Nott says, voices Caleb heartache, “You can’t- all those things you wanted, Caleb-” Nott turns to Jester, “ _Read him_ , this needs to be a conversation.”

Jester grumbles as she lights up and presses her fingers to Caleb’s side, he feels her in his mind and pushes words forward,

“He says that he doesn’t feel he has much left to live for.” Jester interprets, “And some bullshit about being worthless without this, but that’s _wrong_ , Caleb! You’re not worthless! Not to me! Not to _us-_ ”

_We have known each other a month, Jester_. Caleb tries to make his thoughts gentle and Jester frowns deeply,

“That doesn’t matter, you- you guys are the first friends I’ve had since- since _ever_. All of you, that includes you, Caleb. It wouldn’t be the same if you were gone.”

And she lays herself down over him, buries her face, he swears he feels her sob and Molly raises a hand to tuck into her hair. There’s the sound of scuffle, and then Cali is leaning up and layering herself over Jester, Clay shifts marginally aside to let Fjord come awkwardly in and join the cuddle huddle, he looks over Molly to Beau and Keg and gestures for them to join them. Beau comes faux-reluctantly, drags Keg too and leans over Molly with a hand on his head, gentle, uncharacteristic.

“Fuck you, Beau.” He mumbles, pressing back to kiss Caleb, Keg comes, pulled, a heavy weight on Molly and Caleb’s legs beside Nott.

“Fuck you Molly. But uh- Caleb, you know, Jester’s right?”

There’s silence. Beau curses.

“Yeah, can’t talk, don’t mock me but… Jester is right. I mean- I’m cool, I don’t _need_ friends or whatever, so this is like- it’s a privilege? An honour? But it wouldn’t be right if y’weren’t here, so. You know? Yeah.”

Caleb wriggles a hand out to her and puts it to her shoulder, squeezes with grateful affection he could never, will never voice.

 

“You never told us why you’re in town, Jester?”

It’s been a week since Lorenzo, Caleb is finally strong enough to sit and he does, with Molly’s arm around him. Nott has been out in the library, is busy teaching Caleb basic signs and he mimics them with ease. The alphabet, first, then _please, thank you, yes, no, sorry_ , everything Caleb would use most often.

_I love you_. She shows him the book and makes the motions and Caleb mimics clumsily, they try again and it gets better and he closes the book.

“Jester?” Fjord pokes her and she sits upright, just manages to avoid smearing charcoal across the page of her sketchbook.

Caleb taps Nott’s shoulder and makes the sign again,

_I love you, N_.

“I asked y’ what you’re doin’ in town. You were eager as th’ rest of us to get here, what brings y’ to Siedhelm?”

Nott throws herself into Caleb’s arms in the background and he cuddles her careful and affectionate.

“Oh! Well, my _mother_ has been sending packages to different places for me, like a treasure hunt! So Siedhelm is the last one, and there’s going to be _lots_ but it hasn’t arrived yet.”

“I love you too, Caleb.” Nott’s voice is a shrill rasp against his shoulder and he holds her tight, Molly’s hand on his waist.

“So y’almost died, twice, for a treasure hunt?” Fjord pulls a face of disbelief, and Jester nods excitedly, shifts Cali in her lap.

“A _really fun_ treasure hunt! And Beau has been with me since we were in Ry’ull. She doesn’t like boats much.”

“They shake and I hate them.” Beau grunts, “But yeah, I, uh… Kinda needed t’ come here. Spiritual self discovery. Absolutely nothin’ to do with the whiskey that they make here and only here, definitely something good and cool.”

Caleb shakes with wheezy laughter and Molly turns to kiss him, overwhelmed with affection.

“I love the way that you laugh, Caleb.” Molly tells him gently, “I always have, I still do.”

Caleb’s eyes drop, but he’s smiling with Molly’s clawed hand at his cheek. Advancement.

“So, what are we going to do after this?” Yasha asks, and the room turns that sad quiet again.

“I don’t want to split from you.” Jester admits to the silence, “You’re my friends, now. I don’t wanna leave you.”

“Is there any reason to?” Fjord asks with a hint of a frown, “I mean, I got the book that me, Molly, an’ Yasha were here for, Caleb… can’t, do what he wants to, Beau’s got her whiskey-”

“It’s _good_ , fuck you.” Beau interrupts and he nods sagely,

“The Sour Nest is gone, so Keg an’ Cali are sorted, only one I could think with anythin’ left is…” he looks over and gestures to Clay, who shrugs,

“I don’t feel I have any obligations. If I do, the fates will pull me where I need to be, but until then…”

“All we’re waitin’ on is your package. But what’re we gonna do after that?”

Caleb waves for attention and signs the letter _J_ to Nott a few times in quick succession. Nott turns to Jester,

“Miss interpreter?”

A sigh and a pink glow and Caleb garbles information in his mind, makes Jester frown,

“Slower, and more- less broken, Caleb! I don’t understand shit.”

He takes a breath and tries again, calmer, slower, puts bits together.

“There’s- a farming village, I think? In Tenebrae? No- um- um- Terrum? That’s a distance- a farming village, where Caleb comes from? Oh, and an old family house.”  
  
Caleb nods excited, gestures for her to continue.

“Do you still own it? Um- I can’t tell, be more explicit. Yes. Oh, _oh!_ Caleb owns a mansion and wants us to live with him!”

The word _‘yes!’_ flashes bright in the link and Jester can’t hold back a laugh.

“You’re a dirty peasant man, but you own a _mansion_?” Fjord asks, incredulous, and Caleb gives that soft, bouncing wheeze of a chuckle. Molly kisses him again.

“So- we get Jester’s parcel and then we hail a ship and we… fuck off to Terrum, I suppose?” Beau looks around them, cocks her head, “This seems kinda… unreal, I guess, like- I don’t know.”

“Beau, none of us have anythin’ left to do. Nothin’ we can do. Why don’t we just… actually take some time, y’know?” Fjord sighs, “We deserve it.”

“That we do.” Molly muses from his place nestled against Caleb’s neck, “For now, what we need is fresh air and an actual bath.”

“I could _definitely_ go for a bath.” Jester agrees, “There’s a bath house down the road, we can carry Caleb if he can’t walk?”

Nott looks at him and catches the end of him signing _please,_ sets the book aside and nods.

“Alright, let’s go.”

 

Caleb’s walking is doddery and slow and he needs Molly on one side, Clay on the other, holding him up with such gentle care that he nearly cries.

Fjord, as always, strips fast and darts, Clay and Molly work together to peel him out of his clothing, and turn _that_ in to be cleaned.   
Not that they really need to, since Jester will be joining them late due to a super-secret shopping trip that definitely doesn’t involve buying Caleb new clothes. But they do it, taking it in turns to hold him upright or lift him and allow the other to pull various bits of clothing from him.

“There y’ go.” Clay says gently as Molly eases Caleb out of his pants, and Caleb leans back against the soft-furred chest of Clay, closes his eyes and relaxes into the soft scent of incense and flowers, the odd one that follows Clay around. Molly chuckles as he folds Caleb’s clothes.

“Should I be jealous?” he purrs to Caleb, catches the edge of his partner’s lips curve up and the word _ja_ on his silent tongue. And Molly rolls his eyes,

“Ah well, Clay? Could you take Caleb though? I can catch up after…” he gestures to his boots, and Clay gives a note of acceptance, winds an arm around Caleb and together they hobble off to the bath.

They’re just getting settled when Molly joins them a few minutes later, watching as Cali slips under the water, a pale shape against the grey-blue tiles below.  
They’re calm, they’re safe, they’re warm, Caleb is leaning against Clay’s shoulder and winds an arm around Molly’s waist when he comes down on the other side. When he falls asleep, they hush their voices.

Everything is fine.

 

Molly is a slow learner. Nott teaches him sign when she can on the ship to Terrum, mostly when Caleb, still somewhat weak, is asleep. When he’s awake, Molly finds himself a notepad and a quill or a pen and comes to sit with him,

“Here.” He hands it over, “I can’t- yet-” he makes the sign for _sorry_ , and Caleb smiles up at him affectionately, “But you can use this.”

Caleb scribbles quickly.

_I love you_.

Molly isn’t the best reader, either, but he ponders it out and sits on the bed beside Caleb, cupping his jaw so that he can kiss him.

“So, you own a mansion, but you lived homeless? Why?”

Caleb taps a few times before he scratches his answer, careful, not quick.

_Set my family home on fire as a child by accident whilst mas-_ and Caleb scribbles out the last three letters, flushing furiously.

Molly chuckles and kisses his cheek gently.

“Fire Mage issues. I’m aware of them.”  
  
Like accidentally setting fire to things when feeling a strong emotion or sensation.

_Yes well it turns out that hearing your parents scream as they die will ruin a man_

“Oh, sweetheart.” Molly turns to murmur into Caleb’s hair, Caleb leans into him and keeps scrawling.

_I have not been to this home in years, though I know that it has been cared for once a month by a maid._

There’s a pause, a lapse as he taps the pen and searches for the right words,

_I look forward to building a home with you all._

Molly turns his face to kiss him full on the mouth,

“I can’t wait to have a home with you, Caleb.” Molly strokes down the side of his face, “ _Gods,_ you have me feeling-” he pauses to laugh a little over his words, “You’ve got me feeling domestic. And affectionate. And in _love_ , Caleb- you are the best decision my heart has ever made.”

Caleb kisses him and scrawls blind, Molly takes the pad to look when he pulls away,

_I love you Molly._

“Love you too, darling.”

 

Caleb’s house is huge and beautiful, with a wrought-iron fence enclosing it.  
It’s settled in a small forest, a short distance from a little village of farmers and surrounded on all sides by fields and fields of wheat and barley.

“It’s beautiful, Caleb.” Jester says, voice breathless as Caleb comes up to the gates and sighs softly, somewhere between fear and relief and he unlocks the lock with a tiny key.

Caleb turns and beams over his shoulder, Molly shakes his head in affectionate exasperation.

“Caleb mentioned earlier that he’s not sure what state the house will be in,” Molly informs the group, Caleb pushes the gate open, "We can work on repairs and that sort of thing soon." and he smiles at the group, bright and unchained, shuffles up to put an arm around Caleb's waist and kiss his temple

"I hope it's not too bad." Jester is the first to follow them, grimacing, "I can take dust and maybe, _maybe_ a rat- Yasha will kill them."

"And eat them." Nott agrees, and Yasha tries not to smile, fails, badly.

They traipse up the path to the house and Caleb, in front of the big oak doors with the brass knocker, pauses. He fiddles and searches to withdraw his pen and paper from his pocket, taps Molly with his scrawl,

_My housekeeper may be in, I sent word ahead of us that we would be returning, and I know she does not always stay at home_

Molly interrupts him by kissing him softly, Caleb's hand stutters over the shapes on the page, "Caleb, darling, you sound rich. Just knock, we'll figure the rest out as it comes."  
  
So Caleb lifts the brass knocker. And knocks, twice, hard, listens to the dull thud as it reverberates its way through the house and the air. They wait a few minutes, Caleb knocks once more, and then they promptly decide that the housekeeper in not here, and that they should just go in.

Caleb unlocks the door, breathing calm and centred, Molly's arm around his waist affectionately.

 

The entry chamber itself is huge. A high, vaulted ceiling, the whole thing appears to be made of marble and anything painted is white, with gold detailing that Jester decides to coo over. It's relatively empty inside, dusty, but the group is awed anyway as they flood in. Keg stays close to Beau's side, staring around with wide eyes.

 

"Hey, Caleb, even knowin' what I- the things I did? You still think that I deserve t' share this with you?"

Caleb smiles as he turns to her and writes two words in block capitals on his page,

_I DO._

"Oh." Keg says softly, reading it, "Um. Thank you."

"See, Miss Keg?" Calianna turns from Jester to beam, "I told you that you were a good person, and that these are good people."

"And I thought that you were being naive. 'M sorry, Cali."

Cali sweeps over to hug her, all affection and calm and smiles,

"It's okay. You're probably right, but I was right about these people. I was right about you."

Clay chuckles at the sight and steps a little further in, Caleb catches his wrist as he goes to wander off and makes him wait and stare as Caleb scrawls,

_I have a room in mind for you, and a greenhouse. The kitchen, also, if you wish to cook or make tea._

"Isn't that sweet?" Clay chuckles, "I'd like that, thank you, Caleb."

 

It's... nice. It's so nice, to be here, somewhere that Caleb had never again thought that he would see with hopeful eyes. But he's here, and the house is dusty and old but still good, Jester and Clay are padding around together, inspecting and complimenting the architecture and detailing, Beau, Caleb knows, is scouting out the best routes to parkour up the stairs.

Exactly as he'd predicted she would, Beau steps back a couple of steps, and then takes off at a full run, using her momentum to drive her up a wall and spring off, up, so she can just catch the edges of the railing with her fingers, and from there, swing herself up sideways.

 

"Hey, Caleb!" She calls down to him, grin of excitement on her face, "Why don't you show us where our rooms are?"

Caleb nods quickly, excited, and begins to scoot his way up the stairs with Molly, and then the rest of the group, just behind him. Jester catches his hand and there’s a pink glow across her eyes, and then in his head, and he thinks his thanks to her as hard as possible, makes her smile.

“Oh, okay, _so_ \- Caleb says there are six rooms, and only three of them are particularly special, so he has those picked out. Oh, one is for me! Aw! Thank you. This one is a king-sized, _Beau-re-gard_.”   
  
They stop by a door that Jester gestures to, bouncing her eyebrows at Beau, who meets her eyes and squints. 

“Yeah. Thanks. Keg, Yasha-” and she’s pushing past them through the door, trailed immediately by Keg, and then by Yasha a few seconds afterwards. The door closes behind them, and on they go.   
  
“Fjord, this one is yours.” Jester trills at the next door, “Caleb is sorry that there’s no rope or anchors, but you can decorate it as you like.”

Fjord looks to Caleb, rolling his eyes and smiling, he steps up to him and pulls him into a one-armed hug that Caleb is forced to pull his arm from Molly to reciprocate.  
Fjord, in a stuttery, awkward moment of emotion, kisses the top of Caleb’s head and then draws away flushed to close the door to his new room in their faces. Caleb loops his arm back around Molly.

“Oh-ho _-ho_.” Jester cackles, and when Caleb looks over, he sees the sheen of pink still in her eyes. She’s in his head. She knows what’s just gone through it.

She knows how much of a _loser_ he is, and tells him as much with a squeeze of his hand.

Caleb can’t bury his flushed face in his hands, but he wants to.

“Nott, yours is the next room on this side.” Jester, thankfully, changes the subject. Nott dashes ahead a few feet, stops, and turns to thud right back into Caleb.

“Love you.” She tells him before she’s gone again, leaving behind a trail of gold. They turn to the other side of the hallway, and the first room they come to is Jester and Cali’s.  
  
It opens to a burnished orange colour, similar to Caleb’s magic, little metallic details and carvings everywhere, books galore, notepads in the side and spellcasting components and Caleb, discreetly, thinks of the two precious smut books that he has hidden in a secret compartment from the one time his family had actually stayed here. Cali moves to flop on the bed, and Jester stays at Caleb’s side.

“I’ll wait until Clay is in his room.” she assures Caleb when he worries, and they move on to the next door.  
  
Clay opens it to a pretty little room, the same layout as all of the others, but where the others’ windows had been clear, if dusty, Caduceus’ window is completely overtaken by speckled green leaves, little vines of the things trailing into his room. A grin splits his face as he moves to it, runs his finger down one of the vines and coos at the little white flowers that sprout in his wake.

He turns to Caleb, that sleepy grin in place and Caleb feels his heart swell that he’d made a good decision.

“This is wonderful, yes, this is very nice.” Clay half muses, half informs Caleb, trails a little more before breaking back to the door and moving to hug Caleb. Caleb, in response, shakes his arms free of Jester and Molly to reciprocate.

Jester’s eyes do not let up. She burrows carefully into his thoughts, and as she’s suspected for a while- there they are. Feelings for Clay, feelings for Fjord, love for Molly, Caleb is a certified disaster.  
She leaves Caleb as they come out of Clay’s room, Molly pauses to push up onto his tiptoes and kiss Clay’s cheek before the door shuts, and the last Jester sees, Clay has his hand to the spot Molly has kissed with wide eyes.

She waves her goodbyes and goes to join Cali in their room, leaving Caleb and Molly alone in the hall.

“Everyone seems satisfied.” Molly says jovially, smiles around at the closed doors, and then finds himself pushed against a wall as Caleb kisses him hard, wriggling his arms around Molly’s neck and pressing with all he can. When they pull apart, panting, Molly turns his short breaths to chuckles,

“What has you so excited?” he teases, “Could it be that you _enjoy_ making people happy? Caleb Widogast, are you finally letting yourself _be_ a good person?”

Caleb presses his lips to Molly’s again with a smile at the edge of them,

_I’m trying_. He mouths, and Molly smiles and locks his arms around Caleb’s waist firm and sweet,

“You’re doing well, darling.

 

They finally make it into their room, a few kisses later, and find a pretty, plain room, shades of coffee brown, a full length mirror to one side and a four-poster bed with velvet curtains, miraculously uneaten by moths. Molly sees a door off to the side with the mirror, and Caleb makes a gesture that Molly vaguely understands as _water_.

“A bath?” he asks, and Caleb nods, eyes sparkling and watching Molly with reverence and expectation. Molly studies every inch of the room, every nook, cranny, colour, before he turns back to Caleb and kisses him, sweet and long.

“It’s perfect.” Molly murmurs, “All of this is perfect. I love you so much, Caleb.”

Caleb kisses him in reply, drags him toward the bed and they flump down together in peppered kisses and affection.

 

 

The first thing that they decide, unanimously, to do to the house is repaint. Repainting rooms, first, then changing the furniture for those not so big a fan. Clay, of course, is excused, he heads out to the greenhouse to begin to grow plants to fill the kitchens.

“The community here is mostly non-magical.” Molly explains to Fjord, lounging on one of the sofas of the main room whilst Fjord reads through one of Caleb’s books. They’re taking a break, splattered in paint, it’s all over Molly’s cheeks.

“Oh yeah? So they grow their crops by hand?”  
  
“Harvest them by hand, too. It’s celebrated in the autumn, around the equinox. Big festival. Localised, but big.”   
  
“They listen to any o’ the common traditions?”

“Exchanging hand-made gifts, yes. Mostly sweaters, pumpkin pie, the good things in life. And music, too.”

“That’s nice.” Fjord muses, “Comin’ up for that soon, ain’t we?”

Molly counts the months on his fingers.

“Over a month. Month and a half. Got The Day of the Fire to go, yet, and I’m planning a big one for that.”

Fjord chuckles- Molly and Beau, he has found, share a particular love of pyrotechnics. And though it’s unlikely that there will be a bonfire, as tradition dictates, there’s doubtless going to be plenty of fireworks and cherry bombs and crackers and cigarettes.

“I made a tiny Valamin, too.” Molly tells Fjord with a smile in his voice, “No bonfire, but that doesn’t mean I can’t put him over the hearth.”

“An’ they say he was Elvanlice’s worst enemy.” Fjord shakes his head, and Molly laughs,

“Well, what can I say? I might not approve of her morals, but the way that she does things is _very_ relatable.” Molly gestures wide, “If it weren’t for Alonysius-”   
  
“Don’t joke, y’know what happened last time y’ joked about it.”

Molly rolls his eyes, but Fjord is probably right. He’d accidentally set fire to his _moon_ tarot card.

“Thinking about taking us all out to Atrux for The Day of the Wind, though.” Molly muses, “My treat. I hear they always have such wonderful festivals.”

“That’s a day’s ride in a _cart_ , you’d have t’ hire one for- uh-” Fjord does some maths quickly, “Prob’ly about a week. Three days there, right?”   
  
“You know my methods. Go, get blind drunk, music festival and blind drunk, hangover, home.” and Fjord sighs, shakes his head, all affection,   
  
"You're a good man, Molly." Fjord tells him offhandedly, and Molly shrugs,

"Not a man."

Fjord looks up from his book at that- for all that he's travelled at Molly's side, this isn't a conversation they've had.

"Huh. Are y'alright bein referred to as, like, _he_ , or-"

"Oh, he, she, they, it all works, darling." Molly gives him a bright grin, "Honestly, you can call me anything but late for dinner! No, really, Clay is cooking tonight and it smells _divine-_ "

And with that, Molly is up and drifting away to find Clay and the source of the delicious scent, leaving Fjord to his book and the thought of paint swirling in his head.

 

 

 

Clay has made stuffed squash for their meal tonight. Molly doesn’t even ask what’s in it before he’s taking a bite, Caleb is a little more hesitant and Clay cocks his head to catch his eye.

_Everything okay?  
_   
Clay is _signing_ to him. Clay, somehow, has gone out of his way to learn how to sign, and Caleb is so shocked that he almost forgets to reply.

_Yes- just worried about_

Fuck. He knows the sign for texture. He knows he does. _Fuck_.

_Feel_.

It’ll do, Caduceus nods sagely,

_Soup in kitchen._ He replies, gestures clumsy, _bread. New._

Caleb’s mouth waters at the idea of fresh bread, he looks at the little stuffed squash and back to Clay, who nods reassuringly.

He slides his squash to Molly and stands, kisses the top of Molly’s head as he passes to ladle himself up some soup.

“Caleb?” Beau looks up as he passes in concern, and Clay waves a hand,

“Going for soup and bread.” he tells her, finds a hum of response, and Jester calls after Caleb,

“ _Caleb!_  Get me some, too! I want _soup_!”

 

Molly heads up to bed before Caleb that night, kisses him at the bottom of the stairs and brushes his hair back from his face with reverence.

“Day of the Fire tomorrow.” He reminds, and Caleb rolls his eyes. Molly smiles at him, moves in for another brief kiss. “I know.” He murmurs, “But it’s fun. You’re staying up with Caduceus for a bit?”

Caleb nods, smiling, makes a few nonsense symbols with his hands and the sign for _C_. Molly still isn’t quite past the basics, but he’s trying, and Caleb loves him for it.

“Oh, he can sign?”

Caleb nods, grinning, finds it mirrored on Molly’s face.

“Hey, Caleb,” and that’s a vaguely alarming tone of voice from Molly, “You know I- uh- I don’t mind.”  
  
Caleb cocks his head like a confused puppy. It’s been hell to re-learn how to show his emotions, but he hardly has a choice now.

“I know you like Clay, you know? And Fjord.”

Caleb grasps for his hands in worried panic and Molly chuckles warmly, presses a hand to Caleb’s cheek and kisses him.

“Hey, we’re all gay here.” He tells Caleb when there’s space to talk, “It’s fine. I know you love me, you can love them too, it doesn’t make it any less real.”

Caleb’s shoulders lose their tension and he gives a soft puff of a sigh against Molly’s lips. Molly kisses him again,

“Besides,” he murmurs, “Can’t exactly say I’m any different, now, can I? This whole group functions like one big relationship. The only thing between _friendship_ and _relationship_ is a discussion of boundaries.”

Caleb kisses him, if only to stop him rambling, and shoves gently at his shoulder.  
_  
Go to bed_. He mouths, and Molly smiles for him, walks backwards up the stairs to keep his eyes on Caleb as long as possible.

“Love you, Caleb, see you soon.”

Caleb makes the sign for _I love you_ , and Molly disappears, leaving Caleb to head to the main room to find Clay curled up by candlelight.

 

_Curled up_. It’s an odd sight for a creature so long, though with the food and the rest, Clay is finally beginning to put on some much-needed weight.

So is Caleb, for that matter.

 

Caleb waves for his attention as he enters, and Clay looks up with that sleepy smile.

“Oh, Caleb. How was the soup?”

_Good_. Caleb signs for him, comes nervously a few steps closer and stands, considering and shaking, and Clay sits up in the chair.

“Everything okay?” his eyes trained on Caleb and Caleb, deliberately avoiding his gaze, nods. Clay shakes his head with a soft laugh, “No it isn’t. Come on, sit down, what’s wrong? Can I help?”

Caleb shuffles over to sit on the arm of the chair beside Clay, finds, immediately, a long warm arm snaked around his waist and Clay leans in to rest his head to Caleb’s hip. Caleb is mostly bone, that can’t be comfortable, but damn if that’s not what he’s doing. Caleb waits a moment before settling a hand to the shorter hair on the side of Clay’s head.

“I know, I need it cut again.” Clay gives that chuckle, the throaty one that reverberates through the air, through Caleb.

Caleb runs his fingers through the short hair. It’s about a half-inch long, it’s grown shockingly fast, Clay hums appreciatively at the sensation.

“I was the one that found Albatross- Molly- you know?” Clay speaks like it’s an everyday conversation, “In the forest? His grave? It’s been a while since that happened, so… I found Lucy. I came with you and your friends at first for him, he was… interesting. But I’m glad of it.”  
  
Caleb breathes hard, hopes it sounds confused. He feels a twitch of muscle, and from the corner of his eye, he sees Clay smile.

“You’re good company, mister Caleb. You all are, but you’ve been… I’m not used to this sort of- well. Isn’t this a predicament?”

Caleb gives a huff of a laugh and pats Clay to sit up so that he can scramble off to find a piece of paper and a pen or quill or- he finds something, at least, one of Jester’s charcoal sticks and an envelope that he scrawls on and comes rushing back to Clay,

_Forgotten how to use your words?_

Clay smiles, and it’s odd the way it looks, sad at the edges. Not the nice, sleepy smile that Caleb has come to accept of him.

“Something like that, probably. We should sleep soon, it’s late, you know what Day of the Fire celebrations can- oh. I’ll…” and trails off as Caleb returns to scrawling, standing shaking in front of Clay. Clay rubs at his eyes with the heel of one hand, rubbing the exhaustion away, reaches the other hand out to set comfortingly at Caleb’s hip. He feels the shiver under his palm.

~~_Would you_ _  
_ ~~_~~Do you~~ _ _  
_ _I would like it if you would spend the night with myself and Mollymauk._ _  
_ _If that is agreeable to you_

“Spend the night?” Clay asks, soft, and Caleb turns the envelope over to scrawl more,

_Just as a group. There does not need to be anything untoward_

A pause, Caleb watches Clay carefully as he reads,

_Unless_ more _is something that would take your interest?_

Clay reads over the words and looks up to Caleb with- Gods, is that _pity_? Amusement? Caleb shifts, Clay speaks,

“I’m sure this sentiment is sweet but- I have _no_ idea what’s going on.” The smile on his face is _both_ , he stands up beside Caleb and brushes himself down, “Though it’d be nice not to sleep alone. I assume that was the invite?”   
  
Caleb lets out a soft breath of relief and signs to him,

_Yes. That’s it._

“Sounds good. Bed, then?”

Caleb nods and trails away, Clay follows, extinguishing lamps as he goes.

 

Molly lifts his head as Caleb opens the door, squinting, but smiling,

“You were quick, love.”

Caleb waves a hand and steps to the side so that Clay’s silhouette can fill the door instead.

“Oh, company.” Molly hums, and shifts to the side a little, “I’m a blanket hog, you’ve been warned, Clay.”

“S’fine with me, I’m sure I can gather some.” Clay’s voice has the tone of a smile, and he slips past Caleb, into the room and waits for the door to close and Caleb to pad over the soft carpet and slip into bed with Molly. He’s been in his sleeping clothes for a few hours, knows himself well enough to know that if he doesn’t get changed when he has the mental energy for it, chances are he’ll just sleep in his regular clothes and Molly isn’t much a fan of that.  
He says it’s scratchy.

“Clay?” Molly asks, and Caleb tucks himself against Molly’s side before he turns to look up at the taller Mage. Clay is busy folding his clothes and putting them aside.

“Forgot to change.” He tells them apologetically, “I can, if you want.”

“No, you’re fine.” Molly replies, closes his eyes sleepily and turns his head to press his face into the crook of Caleb’s neck. He earns himself a kiss in response.

“Good- really didn’t want to walk all that way.”

“Down the hall?” Molly asks, teasing, and Clay chuckles,

“It’s a distance, didn’t you know?”

The bed dips as Clay climbs in beside them, scuffles himself under the quilt and curls into his characteristic ball.

A good foot away from Molly and Caleb.

Caleb pats beside him to squeeze Molly’s thigh- he still sleeps naked, not the best choice for having someone else in your bed, but- Molly lifts his head squinting, Caleb sees the pointed tip of his ear flick a little.

“Clay?” He asks slowly,

“Hm?”  
  
“Why are… over there?”

Clay opens his eyes again, not much to see in the darkness but he manages to meet Molly’s gaze.

“Thought it might be polite not to cuddle with your boyfriend. Did I do something wrong?”

“Yeah,” Molly tells him, tries to keep his voice serious but doesn’t quite succeed, “You didn’t assume we _both_ wanted you here. Come on.”

Molly flops back down, and it takes a moment before Clay unwinds, shuffles closer, Caleb finds himself between them.

“So cuddling- okay?” Clay asks, close enough that Caleb can feel the warmth of his body beside him and he nods,

“Yes.” Molly translates, “ _Please_.”  
  
Clay, ever a people pleaser, obliges.

 

 

When Nott wakes them in the morning, they’re all tangled together in the sheets, Caleb squished between the two of them, legs twined and Clay’s hand in Molly’s hair.  
Stuck.

“Ow!” Molly yelps when they jerk awake and Clay accidentally pulls, then, “Oh, I need to- uh- look at the feelings that came from that. Nott, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing- just- it’s The Day of the Fire. You need to get up, Beau wants help with the chemicals that make the colours.”

“She’s leaving it _this late_? And you’re better at that than me.”

“She asked for you. Here, let me-” Nott comes scrambling over, and gently, carefully, begins to untangle the hair from around Clay’s fingers over the top of Clay’s sleepy apologies.

Once free, Molly sits up, yawning, and Nott pulls a face at his lack of clothes.

“I’ll tell her you’re getting up.”

And then, in quite _literally_ a flash, she’s gone through the door and it slams behind her.

“If anyone else was still asleep, they aren’t now.” Clay comments sagely, and both he and Molly slip out of opposite sides of the bed to begin to dress. Caleb rubs the sleep from his eyes and looks between them, face flushed and smiling and wondering how he got so lucky as to be here.

 

 

 

They join the celebrations of the town. There is a bonfire, here, though there will be none at home, and Molly clutches his little handmade Valamin with excitement. He can see, even from a distance, the children cackling as they throw their own little figures into the flames and takes off.

Caleb watches his partner run to the flames with a silent, affectionate chuckle, finds Clay’s arm around his shoulders in Molly’s stead.

There’s food aplenty, and Clay himself stops beside a building to grow a large pumpkin, Keg destroys the magical evidence, and they lug the pumpkin to the table of donations to a smile from the woman checking everything over. Her hair is a fiery ginger, freckles scatter across her nose and cheeks, a smile on her face. She leans across the table as Clay puts the pumpkin down,

“That’s a biggie. Welcome home, Widogast, town’s missed your family. Nila’s been up there every few weeks, you know?”

Caleb smiles awkwardly and looks around, Clay comes to his aid, a hand on the small of Caleb’s back as a comforting pressure.

“Glad to know he’s been missed.” Clay’s drawl is sleepy and polite and Caleb loves the sound of it, “I’m afraid our Caleb here lost his ability to speak a short time ago, hope you’ll excuse the lack of response.”

“Oh, of course, sorry.” The ginger woman waves a hand, watches as Caleb’s eyes dart to the bonfire and he smiles at the sight of Molly dancing and shrieking along with the children there. She follows his gaze,

“Any of the kids yours?”

Caleb shakes his head, pauses partway and turns to Clay to sign,

“No children, just one big child.” Clay translates aloud, and shifts his hand to Caleb’s hip to pull him a little closer. Caleb comes willingly.

“The purple one?”  
  
“Yes, they’re ours.” Clay flashes Caleb a smile laced with _something_ and Caleb flushes and looks away even as he presses harder to Clay’s side. Molly chooses that moment to look up and catch sight, placates the children quickly and comes over calling.

“Caleb!”

There’s a group of bards setting up by the fire, conversing quietly and screeching as they tune their instruments, the children collect in front of them.

“Caleb!” Molly draws up beside him, the side opposite of Clay, and he pauses to cup his cheek and kiss him sweetly. He’s beaming when he draws away, breaks quickly to push onto his tiptoes and kiss Clay’s cheek, too.

“My Valamin burned like a candle. It was _neat_.” Molly tells Caleb excitedly, and Caleb gives that sweet huff of laughter that Molly loves so much, he can’t resist pressing back in for another kiss. Clay draws Caleb away, and Molly follows. They move toward the bonfire and Caleb doesn’t flinch or wince or shy away, just relaxes into the arms around him and trusts himself to Clay and Molly, trusts they’ll keep him safe.

The bards are playing some beautifully harmonised tune about the will of the flame, Molly listens a moment and chuckles in Caleb’s ear about how unlike Elvanlice this is. But it’s slow, and rich, and Molly pats Caleb’s shoulder,

“Mister Caleb,” He says, all smooth against the curve of Caleb’s jaw, “Would you dance with me?”

Caleb kisses him and presses the fingers of one hand to Clay’s side before he pulls away, and Clay steps to the side as Molly and Caleb arrange themselves and begin a somewhat clumsy waltz.  
Caleb, Molly thinks, is so beautiful like this.  
With his face scrunched up in silent laughter, the scattering of freckles across his cheeks with the threat of more in the sunlight, his hair auburn and glowing in the reflection of the firelight.  
They spin together, a whirl of Caleb’s long trench coat and Molly’s pretty, embroidered one, far enough from the flames to keep Caleb calm and Molly leans in carefully to rest his forehead to Caleb’s.   
They have to slow a little, to stop their skulls bumping painfully, but the gesture is sweet and intimate and Molly’s breath comes in shakes from his smile.

“I love you.” He breathes to Caleb, “I’ve known you would be special to me from the moment I met you.”

Caleb presses his lips to Molly’s gently, follows the kiss with the word,

_Others_   
  
It takes a few repeats for Molly to make it out, but he smiles when he does.

“I love them, too.” He tells Caleb as they turn, “I knew they were special, too.”

The song finishes, and they twirl to a stop and pull apart, they find Jester, Fjord, and Clay all watching them with mixed emotions.  
Clay’s arms are folded, like he’s smug, like he’s- proud?  
Jester’s eyes and mouth are wide in shock, and Fjord- he’s surprised, too, but in a far more awkward way.

“You _love us_.” Jester teases Molly. “You said you _love_ us.”

Molly flushes deeply.  
It’s the first time Caleb’s seen it properly take to his cheeks, he turns a red-violet and Caleb falls in love all over again at the sight.

“Is it a crime to care about your friends, now?” Molly returns, comes up beside Clay and eases into the arm he puts instinctively across Molly’s shoulders.

“Of course not! I care about you, but you said the L-word. You _said it_.” Jester’s grin is bright and Molly rolls his eyes. Caleb, beside him, is trying very hard not to double over in (partially nervous) laughter.

“The L-word?” Beau’s voice reaches them as she and Yasha appear from behind one of the buildings, looking somewhat ruffled, “Whassis about lesbians?”

“ _Love_ , Beau, not _lesbians_. That’s a different tone of L-word.”

“Who’s loving what?”

“Molly _loves us_.” Jester trills, sing-song, a bright grin and Beau-   
  
She looks like she goes through the five stages of grief in the space of about three seconds.   
Caleb waves quickly for Clay’s attention,

_Ask B to tell thoughts in order_

“Caleb wants you to narrate everything you thought in that little facial exercise, Beau.”

“Uh- alright.” Beau pauses, “So kinda- this? _Bullshit, what, fuck, gross, how, why, ugh, fine- cool cool_.” She lists off each segment and counts on her fingers as she goes.

Caleb shrugs out of Molly’s arm and moves to her, stops and lets her stare for a second before dropping his forehead to her shoulder with a bolt of pain and an audible thud.

Beau yelps, and breaks that into a laugh to sling an arm around Caleb in an awkward, angled hug.

 

They stay another hour or two in the village. The children are ushered away from the fire as the alcohol is brought out, taken to the other side of the village to let off fireworks- naturally, Nott, Beau, and Molly follow. Jester and Cali, unsurprisingly, follow a few minutes behind, leaving Caleb, Fjord, Yasha, Keg, and Clay around the fire, sipping hot cider and humming appreciatively. Clay drinks, pulls a face, shakes his head.  
  
“I… would rather not. Keg?”   
  
Keg takes his mug with a nod of thanks, sips from both alternately. Caleb looks up to him in brief concern, waves his mug at Fjord to take so that he can sign to Clay.   
_  
Everything okay? _

Clay gives a brief, soft laugh,

“This tastes _awful_ , don’t think I’m a fan.”

_Something else to drink?_

“If you can find it around here.” Clay shakes his head, “How about a distraction? You can teach me to dance.”  
  
“ _Clay_ ,” Fjord’s eyebrows raise, and he goes to add something to it but- snaps his mouth shut before it can slip out. Both Caleb and Clay have a pretty good idea, something chiding Clay for flirting, but it’s irrelevant to the situation. Caleb pats Fjord’s arm, offers his hand to Clay, and away they sweep.

 

Clay is no natural, by the time they head back home to let off their own fireworks, Caleb is a little bit bruised, a little bit drunk, and a lot happy. He laughs his way up the path, Clay has to take the key to unlock the house from him, his hands shake so much from the laughter and the cider and Molly breaking his concentration to kiss him silly.

“The drunk ones taught me a song I hadn’t heard before.” Molly tells Caleb in between kisses, “It’s _great_.”

“That means it’s terrible.” Fjord translates, though Caleb doesn’t need it, they spill into the atrium to calm down for a few minutes before they head out for the fireworks.

“Maybe so,” Molly agrees, “But I love it.”

Caleb pushes Molly back a little to sign,

_Sing for me?_

Molly frowns at the gestures,

“I didn’t catch the first word. I got _for me_ but- but not the first. Spell it out?”

_S-I-N-G_

Caleb watches Molly sound it out with each letter and he brightens as the sentence clicks into place,

“ _Oh,_ of course, of course.” He pauses to kiss Caleb again, “When we do the fireworks.”

  


Caleb and Clay work side-by-side in the kitchen to make drinks.

They heat up some cider for Fjord, Beau, Keg, and Caleb, pour whiskey for Nott and Yasha, make tea for Clay, Cali, and Molly, milk for Jester.

It takes a serving tray to take it all out to the back garden, where Molly, Beau, and Nott are setting up an array of their explosives and begging they don’t blow up in their faces. Caleb sets his cup on a windowsill and taps Clay’s arm,

_I feel useless. I can’t help here._

Clay sighs gently and holds his cup in one hand and a short distance away in case it spills, cups one side of Caleb’s face in the other and bends to kiss his hair in reassurance. Clay’s hand is so big that he can cup Caleb’s cheek, and his long fingers curl to the back of his head.  
Something about the thought makes Caleb flush.

“You don’t need to help.” Clay tells him as he pulls his cup back to both hands and straightens, “They enjoy doing it themselves. Look, Jester has tapers.”

She’s lit three from one stout candle held by Cali, hands one to Nott, one to Beau, and Molly takes his as he comes past her.  
Keg hands him something else as he passes, and he comes to Caleb with the taper in one hand, and the cigarette, lit, in the other.

“Been a while.” Molly lifts the cigarette jauntily, “Figure it’s in the spirit. Want?”

Caleb holds up a finger,

_One_.

So Molly raises it to his lips, the same way they’ve always smoked together, lets Caleb drag as he comes and drapes himself across his boyfriend’s shoulders. Clay waits for Molly to settle with his chin on Caleb’s shoulder, faced ever so slightly away from Caleb’s face, and then puts an arm across them both.  
Despite the summer, the night is cool, Caleb is grateful for the extra warmth and the soft clouds of smoke that Molly blows deliberately away from his face. He taps Molly’s wrist, doesn’t need words to let his partner know he wants another drag, and that’s about the time the first fireworks are lit.

Beau and Nott flash-step away when the fuses begin to spark, the fireworks are a rudimentary combination of metal filings of magnesium- apparently a pain in Nott’s everything to handle safely- and a few other metallic salts. Nott has been experimenting for a while with the colours, based on the flames, finding out which are stable enough.

Caleb has had… quite a week. Nott managed to accidentally blow out the windows of one of the smaller workrooms, and if it hadn’t been for Jester throwing up a forcefield just in time, they probably would have had partially cooked goblin for lunch.

But it comes to an impressive head tonight, Molly pulls away from Caleb so he can cheer and whoop without it being directly in his boyfriend’s ear, the cigarette becomes a little orange spark in the darkness as he waves it and turns, at one point roughly during the third blue firework, to kiss Caleb hard.  
Caleb laughs wheezily as he pulls away,

_Why that?_

“Because I love you!” Molly calls back over the whizzing and whistling and shouting, “I love you _so much_ that sometimes I can’t contain it and I need to-” he steps in quick to kiss Caleb again before moving back and taking the last drag of smoke. Clay’s arm is slung over Caleb’s shoulders and he’s smiling along with them, part of something, Caleb looks at his friends in turn and falls in love with the idea of life once more.

 

 

“I believe you promised our Caleb a song.” Fjord teases Molly once the fireworks are over and Molly yawns, stretches, says he’ll head in. Molly pauses, halfway through splaying his fingers to stretch,

“I did, didn’t I?”

“You did.” Clay affirms, Caleb still tucked warm and tight under his arm and Molly gives a grin so mischievous that Fjord realises that he has made a monster.

He launches into loud song, toned by the amount he’s had to drink, and it’s the most wonderful thing Caleb has ever heard,

 

_Elvanlice, now there be a name-_

_See her wild and bright and free!_

_Away from the charge of feeling her flame,_

_She strips of status and of money;_

_God of fire, cannon, and fame_

_Creation of mechanical acuity._

 

“Oh by the Gods.” Yasha murmurs as she draws up alongside Clay, “He’s going for it.”

Molly seems to have taken on some kind of odd, stomping, twirling dance. It’s halfway between graceful and terrible, Caleb laughs until tears burn at the edge of his vision and Clay has to hold him up,

 

_Everbright, the fire does glow,_

_On Valamin, Elf bastard he is-_

_And fuck to him for being so!_

_Enemy of our Elvanlice,_

_Threw his body in the volcano-_

_She burnt him to a crisp!_

 

“I am,” Fjord eyes Molly warily, “ _very_ glad that none o’ us- fuck, Cali-”   
  
‘ _None of us are Elven_.’

Caleb signs under Clay’s eye, finishes Fjord’s aborted sentence and shakes his head,

_She does not mind._

Cali is laughing along just as bright as the rest of them, leaning into Jester’s shoulder and beaming from ear-to-ear,

 

_A beauty she was, but distant from other-_

_They say once that the Hero of Flame_

_She took to the cold lake for a lover;_

_And left her in solo disarray,_

_To surface she swam with life in recover_

_And returned to her shot and her stave!_

 

Molly finishes, panting, and it’s a few seconds before Beau, of all of them, lets out a loud whoop and claps and the others join in, Keg and Beau and Jester hooting, Clay and Caleb laughing softly, Fjord and Yasha unsure whether they should be shocked. It’s Molly, of course.

 

“Never heard that story before!” Molly draws back to Caleb, “The last verse, about the lover in the lake.”

Caleb pats Clay to interpret and rushes through a series of signs,

“Little slower, Caleb, it’s late.” Clay tells him gently, and Caleb starts again, Clay nods and translates as he goes,  
“Elvanlice visited Winterglen up during the Winter Solstice, when the Mermaids were out. And apparently ended up making love- no, wait- _fucking_ -” Clay pulls a face, “One of the mermaids.”

There’s another flurry of signs.

“Because the mermaid ate a man.” Clay finishes sagely, “Don’t make me say those words again.”

Caleb is bright pink from holding down his bubbling laughter and the look on Clay’s face- he can’t any more. He laughs harder than he can ever remember laughing in years, puts his hands on Clay’s shoulders and pulls himself to his tiptoes to kiss him.

It’s- an odd sensation.

Clay is _furred_ , from ear to toe tips, and his lips are no exception. Shorter fur than the rest of him, yes, but _still_. It’s intriguing to Caleb, the way the texture of such fuzzy fur feels like static against his own mouth and it takes Clay a moment for his sluggish brain to catch up and begin to reciprocate- just long enough that Caleb’s brain kicks in and starts to scream and he scrambles back and away just moments before Clay can cup his hip.

Caleb puts a few feet of distance between them and stares with eyes wide and hands already forming the sign for _sorry_ , over and over and over and over.

There is silence among his friends.

They have all just watched him do that.

They have all just watched him kiss Clay.

Even Molly’s mouth is slightly ajar.

The silence and stretches, there is no noise to interrupt it, not even a cricket in the long grass. They have all been chased away by the fireworks and Caleb’s thoughts are loud, his blood rushes hard, his pulse in his head is an earthquake.

“Fjord, you owe me five gold.” Beau turns and shatters the silence, “I told y’ he was getting better.”

“Fuck.” Fjord concedes. There’s a clatter of coin being pulled out of pocket drowned out by Molly’s screech of- delight?

He rushes up to Caleb and pulls him into a tight hug, then releases near immediately,

“I was _wondering_ how long it would take- sorry, darling, are you okay?” Molly hovers his hands near but doesn’t touch and Clay still hasn’t moved and everything is just a lot right now.

Caleb darts around Molly, around Clay, grabs Beau’s wrist and pulls her along with him into the house.

Molly watches him go.

“That’s still better than the Woods.” He comments, to Yasha’s murmured agreement.

 

Caleb pulls Beau up the stairs and looks around all of their rooms for a brief moment. Beau takes the lead, drags Caleb by the wrist and slams them into Nott’s room, searches immediately for a pen and paper.  
He takes it from her with shaking hands, they sit on the edge of Nott’s bed. 

_WHAT THE FUCK DID I JUST DO_

Block capitals, ink smudged, and Beau reads it and frowns,

“Uh- you kissed Deuces. Thought that was pretty obvious.”

  _WHY_

 Beau frowns, like she cannot comprehend this conversation,  
“Because… you… like him? Didn’t you sleep with him last night?”

_MOLLY ASKED_

Beau is beginning to get the feeling that the capital letters are more for clarity than for mood and it eases her a little,  
“So Molly likes him. You just kissed him, right? You do too.”

Caleb pauses with his pen over the page, looks from Beau’s honest eyes to the paper.

_IT FRIGHTENS ME_

“What, having a thing for Clay? Why? What’s wrong with him?”

_NOT CLAY. I LOVE MOLLY._

“Yeah, and you love Clay. Like I love Yasha, and I love Keg. And Keg loves me, and Yasha, and Cali. And-”

Caleb pushes the paper in front of her eyes to cut her off

_I WAS NOT AWARE OF THIS COMPLEX RELATIONSHIP_

“It’s as complex as you make it.” Beau shrugs, “And you’re makin’ it more complex than it needs t’ be. Everyone in this fuckin’ house is poly, Caleb. Except Nott. She’s only interested in dating money.”

 

Caleb blinks at her a few times, running through her words and tearing them apart different ways, looking for a hole he can throw himself into. He can’t find one.

 

_Molly once said that this group functions like a relationship_ .   
_That the only difference between_ **_friendship_ ** _and_ **_relationship_ ** _is a discussion of boundaries._

 

Beau skims it over and rubs a hand over her face,

“Alright look. I’m gonna say something, but if you ever tell Molly I said it, I’m gonna deny it. Okay?”  
  
Caleb nods hard, and Beau sighs again, like this whole thing is paining her,

“Molly’s- they’re _kinda right_. I guess. I don’t know, you’re comin’ to _me_ for relationship advice?”   
  
Caleb’s smile edges on mischievous and he nods, slowly, deliberately.   
  
“Yeah. Molly is kinda right- we do sorta- like as a group? And like- a relationship isn’t always about- romantic bullshit? There’s people who don’t experience that kinda attraction, they do relationships on their own terms. I mean- I have trouble. You know?”

There’s a pause, Beau looks up from her wildly gesturing hands to Caleb, leaning back to avoid being hit in the face.

“Sorry. I like this better when I can just talk.” There’s a hint of sarcasm to the tone, “I think boundaries are- ah- they’re a good place to start.”

Caleb shuffles across the bed and settles his head against her shoulder, Beau slings an arm across him haphazardly, and they both fall silent.

 

Downstairs in the main room, Molly finds himself curled and cuddled against Clay’s chest, chattering to Fjord- quietly. Clay has managed, somehow, to fall asleep.

“Talk about somethin’ else, Molly,” Fjord tells him when he says for the third time in two minutes that he’s worried about Caleb, “Worryin’ will get y’ nowhere. Beau will take care of him.”

“Talk about _what_? He’s all I think about.”

Jester coos gently,  
“That’s so cute!”   
  
“How about Elvanlice and that Mermaid. Y’seemed pretty shocked.”

Molly rolls the story over in his head.

“I’m _jealous_ , honestly.” Molly muses and turns against Clay’s chest to rest his chin on his hands, “Where’s _my_ man-eating Mermaid? Hm?”

Fjord doesn’t even look up from his book, just turns a page loudly,   
“You have Clay.” he replies, and Molly rolls his eyes,   
  
“Clay is _one_ ; not a Mermaid, and _two_ ; a vegetarian. He doesn’t eat meat, he can’t be a man-eating Mermaid.” He lists off to Fjord, “Get better comparisons. _You_ are closer than Clay is.”

Fjord smirks and turns another page loudly. Molly is sure he’s doing it for effect, he can’t be reading that quick,  
  
“Well you should know, Molly, I got one out of two of those down.”

Jester gasps from her sofa, puts a hand to her mouth in shock,

“ _Fjord!_ ” She sounds enthralled, “Are you actually secretly totally a _Mermaid_?”

Fjord looks up, finally, but not at Jester.  
At Molly.   
Meets his eyes, very, very deliberately, straight faced and serious.

“I sure fuckin’ ain’t.”

Molly groans and turns and buries his face in Clay’s chest and doesn’t move until Fjord’s laughter dies away.

 

By the time Caleb peeks his head out of Nott’s room, the rest of the house is quiet.  
Fjord has made his way to his room, Yasha and Keg are in the process of changing to sleep, Jester and Cali are curled up in bed. Nott sits in the hall against the wall across from her door, a tiny globule of light in her hands, eyes glowing dimly gold.

“Molly and Clay are asleep downstairs.” She tells Caleb quietly as he emerges, “Everyone else is in bed.”  
  
He signs his thanks to her and slips away, leaving Beau to scoot out behind him and wave to Nott, scurrying away to her own room. Nott watches Caleb pause in the hallway and thinks, briefly, of advising him. He looks between the stairs and his bedroom door, frozen in place with a decision to make and the urge to coddle boils up in Nott and she crushes it down.

Sometimes, she thinks, Caleb needs to make his own correct choices.

She doesn’t doubt that he’ll work this out.  
She slips into her room and leaves Caleb behind, her careful ears don’t miss the creak of the stairs as he pads down them.

 

  
Molly is splayed over Clay on the sofa.

Clay is _too long_ for the sofa, his legs are slung over the end and Molly has his head on Clay’s chest, lying on his front, bowed into almost a bowl shape as he adheres to the curve of Clay’s body.

Caleb gives a soft snort of laughter at the sight.  
The lanterns in the main room are still lit, they expected Caleb to come back down here, and for good reason he supposes. He can’t let Clay and Molly sleep here, they’ll wake up aching, so he moves carefully to Molly first and kisses his cheek softly.

Molly’s eyes flicker open already smiling at the blurry shape of Caleb hovering over him, nervous but soft and crinkled at the edges of his eyes and smile with love and adoration.  
  
“Hey.” Molly murmurs and lifts a hand to Caleb’s cheek, draws him back pliantly to kiss him again.

Clay stirs and yawns and wakes underneath Molly, an arm comes up and over Molly’s back and eyes blink open to Caleb standing, scared but brave.  
The two are not mutually exclusive.

“Morning?” Clay murmurs, and Caleb smiles that tight, panicked smile,

  _Not morning. I can’t let you sleep here. It will hurt._

Clay studies the gestures and lets it run through, sleepy brain slowed further by a long day and he nods, eventually,

“Bed’ll be more comfortable. Have you eaten this evening?”

Caleb nods, and it’s not _technically_ a lie? Beau had pocket bacon and Caleb had a little of that whilst he calmed down. Clay eyes him dubiously, but seems too tired to push it, he pats Molly until he stands, and then gets up behind him.

“I’ll put out the lamps.” Clay tells them sleepily, “Go to bed, I’ll see you in the morning.”

“You’re not- uh- staying with us?”

Clay shakes his head as he moves to the first lantern,

“Not tonight. That’s a _conversation_ , Molly, I’m too tired for it.”

Molly eyes him. Or looks at his back, scans up and down, pauses,

“Huh… fair. Night, Clay.”

“Night, Molly. Goodnight, Caleb.”

Caleb gives a sign and Molly puts an arm around his shoulders,

“He says goodnight.”

And the two traipse out, leave Clay behind to sort the lanterns out.

 

It’s been a long day. Caleb and Molly collapse to bed together and Molly puts his hands to Caleb’s cheeks and kisses him until he’s laughing too hard to breathe.

“I love you,” A kiss, “Caleb Widogast,” another, “You are- my heart- my world- my _life_ \- you are _mine_ , and I- love- you-”

He punctuates each block with another kiss and Caleb heaves for breath, smiling against his mouth.

_Love you too_.

Caleb mouths the words against Molly’s lips and feels Molly tug at his thigh until he manages to get it hitched over his hip and presses back into him.  
They twine, to the point of not really knowing where one of them ends and the other begins, and in shared breaths they fall away to sleep.

Clay lumbers upstairs not far behind them.

He goes into his room and mumbles tired greetings and goodnights to each of the plants he’s named in here, mills to the window and kisses the vines trailing through, begs the breeze in the cracks of the panes not to blow so fierce for him tonight, bows his head to the moon and the speckles of colour visible on its surface tonight, and crawls into bed to wrap himself around a pillow and ignore that, despite having been alone his whole life, he’s only now beginning to feel the depth of his loneliness.

 

The morning after The Day of the Fire consists of a solid ninety percent _hangover_.

Clay and Jester take to the kitchen early on, with even Cali laid out in bed with a headache- blaming Keg for the shots- the two who hadn’t drank make breakfast for them all.  
There’s stuffed squash, some kind of stew with rice and beans and tomato, Jester is washing, peeling, and grating potatoes for hash browns.  
When the group comes down, they find plates of food already on their dining table, steaming softly in the mid-morning air, all windows open and summer breeze tickling through with the scent of the roses curling up the house prevalent in the dining room.

Fjord is the first down, takes himself a bowl of the stew and a good hunk of bread and sits, doesn’t bother to dip his bread, just goes at it like an animal. A hungry, hungover animal.

Beau plucks a hash brown before she’s even sat down and turns to make a comment to Keg and Yasha that Fjord doesn’t hear. And judging by the way Keg’s hands flinch and withdraw from reaching toward the stew, he probably didn’t want to.

Cali comes down pouting and covering her eyes, led by Nott and the smell of food. Nott sits Cali down and Beau passes her the teapot so she can pour a cup for her, some mumbling later sees a little jug of milk tipped carefully into the cup until the tea turns milky and Cali nods her thanks.

Nott scrambles for food, and Molly comes into the room with Caleb close behind him.

“Ooh,” Molly says cheerily, “Food.”

He begins to plate himself up- he’s a fan of Clay’s stuffed squash- and Caleb stares at the table with wide eyes looking everything over.  
He can’t eat the squash or the hash browns for their texture, the bread looks sickening to him on such a queasy stomach, there’s some boiled potatoes in the middle that elicit a similar reaction, and a stew that hits him so hard as _Clay_ that his poor battered brain can’t even begin to comprehend eating it.

Everything he’d broken the day before, he’s already in damage control mode.

If he can distance himself from Clay.

Pretend he doesn’t care.

_Stop_ caring and get over it.

When Clay rejects him and tells him how disgusting he is, he’s sure, all of this self restraint will make it hurt less.

But it does mean that tied, hungry, hungover Caleb Widogast cannot eat _anything_ at this table.  
So he stares as Molly sits down and pops a chunk of pumpkin into his mouth, and he stares some more, and a little longer, and Beau looks over, frowning, at Caleb’s tense, still body.  
At Caleb’s wide, tear-rimmed eyes.

“Caleb, dude?”

Caleb bursts into tears.  
If he still had a voice, they’d be noisy, but the only sound he can make is loud breathing and sniffling and the sound of himself hitting the floor as his legs give way and he curls in on himself.

“Buddy,” Beau is up to his side, “The hangover will do that to ya.”

She doesn’t need to stumble through asking his permission to touch; the second she’s close enough, Caleb clings to her and hears Molly’s chair scrape as he scrambles around the table. Nott stands on her chair to look over,

“What’s wrong, Caleb?”

He lets go of Beau momentarily to sign a few convoluted half-sentences, and then goes back to clinging, Molly lays across his other side wordlessly and Nott tries to decipher his words.

“Oh.” She says, “I see.”

“What’s wrong, and can we help?” Beau’s question is more to Nott than to Caleb, he can hardly answer with his face  and pressed to her shoulder and his arms around her neck.

“Anxiety.” Nott answers gently, “Try taking him through to Jester, but avoid Clay.”

Beau wraps an arm around Caleb’s lower back and stands, hefts him to his feet to take him through to the kitchen and Molly trails them with his eyes as they move.

 

Beau pushes her head through the door before Caleb, whistles to Jester.

“Psst. Jester. Hey.”

Jester wipes her hands of the oat flour and comes to open the door, Beau grabs it quickly and pulls it tight around herself and Caleb.

“No- uh- Cay’s havin’ some- some issues.”

Caleb waves tentatively over her shoulder,  
  
“Nott told me to bring him to you.”

Jester blinks and her eyes glow that hot pink and Caleb feels her familiar presence gently probing his mind.

_Clay_ , Caleb thinks at her, his mind is too cluttered for him to be coherent, _Can’t eat food_.

Jester frowns at him, but holds up a finger for a pause and turns back, Beau can see her fiddling with something on a plate, Caleb can see nothing.

She calls to Clay to pass her the strawberries, there’s the sound of chopping and then Jester picks it up, comes back to the door and pats Beau aside so she can hand the plate to Caleb.

“Pancakes.” She tells him gently, “I made them. Clay doesn’t know the recipe. They’re sweet, but not like sugar, so I think you’ll like them.”

Caleb gives a soft sigh of relief and grasps the plate a little tighter, mouthing _thank you_ to her as he shuffles backwards out of the hall and into the dining room.

Beau catches Jester’s shoulder as she moves to turn away, leans in quick and kisses her cheek.

“Thanks.”

Jester pats Beau’s cheek, kisses her back wordlessly, and disappears back to her cooking.

 

“When in doubt,” Molly huffs as he tugs himself out of his clothes, “Just… nudity.”

“Nudity?” Clay echoes, Molly nods,

“Nudity. It usually works.”

Clay gives a dubious hum, but he slings the bucket of warm water into the filling pool anyway.

In all honesty, Molly hadn’t expected the mansion to have a community bath, but here they are.   
It’s a basement section, there’s moss and other greenery sprouting around, but Clay has deemed it all pretty and safe, so they’re currently coalescing and heating buckets of water over a hearth fire and filling it. Molly has gotten himself naked perhaps a little early, but- well. What else is he going to do?

Clay and Fjord hand off buckets and it takes nearly half an hour before the bath is full. Yasha comes down the steps and squints.

“Is it ready?”

“Sure is.” Molly grins, and Yasha turns to the top of the stairs to call for the remainder of their friends.

 

Molly is the first in, already naked and slipping down through the water by the time Yasha comes clomping down the stairs again. Clay has thrown in handfuls of little primroses, for aesthetic more than anything, and when Caleb comes down too, he freezes on the stairs.

Molly catches his eye and smiles reassuringly, drawing his attention from Clay and Fjord, stripping.

“Hey,” Molly coos, “Coming in? Water’s lovely.”

Caleb squints in a valiant attempt to see right through his partner.  
He fails, comes down the stairs already shucking his way out of his shirt. He folds it at the bottom, shuffles to put his clothes by Molly’s, pulls his way out of his pants and looks up to the bath where Fjord, Yasha, and Clay have all climbed in already.

Clay eyes him carefully.

“Your burns are healing well.” He comments sagely, and Caleb huffs a soft breath as he moves to the tub with steps as small as they can possibly be without being obvious.  
(It does not work. He is very obvious.)

Molly turns in the water and offers Caleb a hand as he slips into the bath between Molly and Clay, Caleb takes it and presses as close to Molly’s side as he can, the bath becomes silent and the world around them becomes louder, the rest of the girls spill down and begin stripping.

Jester climbs in first, pulls a face at the stoic tension.

“This is so silly!” She proclaims, “Why is this such a big problem?”

She blinks her eyes that pale, stealthy pink and Caleb feels the touch of her, light against his mind.

  _Hello, Jester_.

 He knows that she can only read what he gives her, unless she wants the others to know.  
He also knows that she knows he will cave to her. He feels her presence shift and relax, like she’s settling down to wait.

“Things are just a little awkward, Jester, ain’t nothin’ to try and force through. Doin’ that’ll just make it worse, y’know how these things get.”

“I have _never_ had this kind of problem in my life, Fjord.” Jester gives him a grin a little too sharp at the edges, “I’ve never had people like you before.”

Fjord winces.

“Sorry, Jes.”

She paddles her way through the water to stretch up and kiss him on the cheek as a mark of her forgiveness, and he screws his eyes shut as she pulls herself half out of the water. Caleb feels amusement flicker up in him, and knows that Jester feels it too.  
She side-eyes Caleb as she heads back to Cali. 

_I have a number of issues regarding loyalty._

It’s progress, and Jester has to hide her smile. She can’t reply to him, only listen, Caleb knows she won’t leave until she has all of her answers.  
And that puts them at an impasse. Neither wants anyone else to know about this communication- Jester doesn’t want them to know she’s prying, Caleb doesn’t want them to know that he’s hiding something. Beau and Keg finally join the group.

_I can hardly believe that my feelings for Molly are reciprocated_.

His thoughts are slow as he compiles them carefully.

_I cannot deal with rejection, so I am avoiding it completely._

Jester’s presence, very suddenly, retracts from Caleb’s mind and he’s shocked to find her absence hurts him a little, in his heart. He cuddles closer to Molly at the emptiness, and Molly loops an arm around his waist and kisses him without question,

“Everything okay, my darling?”

His voice is quiet and eyes concerned and low, he has a damp hand to Caleb’s cheek, closing the world off from them, easing Caleb’s tumultuous heart in his chest and Caleb pushes in just a little bit to kiss him again. It’s not as though he can answer efficiently, anyway.

He carefully taps a name against his hand,

_Clay_

And Molly nods, smiles sympathetically.

“What about this is bothering you?”  
  
Caleb just sort of shakes his head against Molly’s palm.

_Later_.

“Of course, my love.”

Caleb shifts to rest his forehead on Molly’s shoulder, and when he picks up and faces his friends again, Jester is chattering to Fjord with her arm around Cali, no hint of pink glow to her eyes.

Clay, meanwhile, seems to have closed in on himself. Like he’s awkward. Like he’s worried.

“Hey, Molly?” He speaks so quiet that Caleb barely hears him. Molly winds and leans around Caleb,

“Yes, darling?”

“I might go and work on- tea. I know you tried-”

“Clay, sweetheart, if this is uncomfortable, then go. I take no offence.”

Molly offers a hand to Clay, and kisses his knuckles when he takes it. Clay gives him a smile somewhere between embarrassed and grateful, and climbs out of the water.

Caleb swears he doesn’t stare as he goes.

 

Caleb’s problems do not magically right themselves through the day. He avoids Clay. Clay avoids him. Molly drags him to bed with the knowledge he’s eaten nothing but pancakes and tucks Caleb into a sleepy cuddle that night with peppered kisses.  
Caleb tries to sleep.  
Caleb cannot sleep.

Molly falls away and Caleb extracts himself carefully and pads his way downstairs and into the kitchen.

Clay must have been in here most of the evening, there’s loaves of fresh bread tucked against the side and Caleb picks a smallish one, a little tiger roll with the pretty patterned crust that Caleb likes the texture of.  
He hops up to sit on a countertop, tears a handful of the bread off, and begins to eat. He’s slow to chew, exhaustion colouring him, eyes half-shut and ears the same way, he doesn’t hear the creak of the stairs.

Doesn’t hear the dining room door open and shut.

Doesn’t see Clay until he’s in the doorway with his ears pricked upward in alarm and lilac eyes wide, hand already glowing faintly pink.

What was he planning to do? Vine him to death?

Caleb stops with one cheek stuffed full of bread, stares straight back at Clay.

“Huh. Everything… okay?” Clay’s tone is so awkward it makes Caleb wince. He nods slowly, and Clay mimics, stepping backward through the door.  
“I’ll leave you to your… bread.”

_Wait_

Caleb damn near throws the bread aside to sign and hopes Clay sees on his way out of the door, Caleb is on his feet in seconds and the door pauses still, one lilac eye visible through the crack and wordless.  
Caleb had not planned this far ahead. 

_This is a mess_

He lets the signs fall slowly, scrunches his face into a pained expression, tries to disguise his own nerves and the door pushes open a little further.

“Come through to the dining room?” Clay invites, and Caleb shifts forward cautiously, catching the door as Clay lets go and follows him to the table.

“Are we ready to work out the dents in last night, then?” Clay asks as he sits and Caleb mimics, waits til they’re settled before replying,

_It is about time we talk about the kiss_.

Clay sighs softly and leans on the table.

“I can forget it, if it makes it any easier?” he offers, “I’m very good at forgetting.”

Caleb almost laughs with the familiarity. Of _it never happened_. Of pretending it meant nothing.  
And the familiarity fills him with a long-lost sense of bravery, the image of a phoenix and Molly in between on his eyelids, he reaches across the table to set his fingertips to the back of Clay’s hand.  
And he shakes his head.  
He has to retract his touch to sign, regretfully,

  _Instead_ , because he doesn’t know the sign for ‘actually’, _we should not. I would like to do it again._

Clay studies and mimics the signs like he’s sure he’s understood wrong.  
Caleb has been avoiding him for nearing two days, surely, surely that can’t be right.

“What now?”

_Can I kiss you?_

Caleb’s hands are shaking too hard for Clay to misinterpret that, the gestures are too clear and he’s too nervous for the question to be anything else. So Clay stares, wide-eyed.

“Huh. I thought you hated me.”

_No!_ Caleb’s protest comes with backed desperation, _just worry. People do not love me easily. I am afraid of no._

He decides pretty quick that he really needs to learn more words. It seems Clay gets the gist, his sad eyes lighten into brightness and surprise, and a kind of odd, aching pity that Caleb so vaguely recognises.

The pain of watching somebody you love hurt themself.

He’s seen Molly wear the same, Beau too, whenever Caleb can’t eat or drink or breathe or move, when Keg collapsed under the weight of the mountain, when Beau found herself being bore down on by her sobbing dwarf girlfriend. It all aches so badly.  
Clay offers Caleb his hand, palm up, gentle and tentative and Caleb takes it, even if it means he can’t speak so well now.  
He wasn’t doing such an excellent job anyway. It’s fine.

“Do you still want to?” Clay asks, and his voice is back to the sleepy drawl that Caleb adores, he cocks his head at the question. Clay smiles. The sleepy smile.  
That Caleb loves.

“To kiss me.” Clay clarifies, and Caleb’s eyes widen and he nods without even thinking- he doesn’t _need_ to think. He knows that he does.

Clay leans in this time.

“My turn.”

And that’s the murmur Caleb hears before Clay is pressing his lips to Caleb’s and sending a bolt of shock down him, through every nerve, it’s different to the way that Molly kisses him, the way Molly feels.  
Molly feels like home and safety and belonging, like a trust and intimacy earned through time building it up. When Caleb thinks too hard about it, it sends his mind reeling with how short a time it has truly been, versus how it feels.

And Clay.

Clay tastes of the earth, of the way that leaves smell and Caleb expects to find it unpleasant but he doesn’t- it’s very, very _Clay_. Clay feels like a new beginning, like a fresh chance, a revival, the ability to start himself from the top and make a better Caleb Widogast, one that deserves to be here.  
Molly is Caleb’s heart, Clay is Caleb’s drive- and he has a theory of who could fill in that missing piece of his recovery.

Aside from… everyone. Of course. Beau is his push, Nott is his pull, Jester his pick-me-up, Cali his new eyes, and Keg and Yasha twins of his stability.

Clay pulls away.

Caleb feels as though he has swallowed a universe of knowledge in such a simple contact.  
Clay smiles at Caleb’s wide eyes and hushed breathing and the way he looks in the dim moonlight from the rose bush filter in the window.

“That’s enough for tonight.” Clay tells him gently, “Go back to bed. I’ll see you in the morning.”

Caleb nods and stands, pauses on his way out to lean in to Clay and kiss his temple.

_Thank you_.

He drops the sign as he leaves, doesn’t give a chance for reply as he heads up the stairs smiling despite himself and trying to cover his stupid grin.  
There’s the sound of a door slamming open upstairs, and when he gets to the top step a second later, he sees Molly with his scimitar drawn and his eyes and unarmed hand flickering with blood red, the symbol of a magic he hasn’t used since the fight with Lorenzo.

“Cay-! Caleb.”

The first bit is a shout and the second a whisper, the scimitar drops and there’s the sound of scuffle from the bedrooms as Molly tears across the hall and bundles Caleb into a hug, tight and aching with such force, nearly knocking Caleb back down the stairs.

“You’re here. _Caleb_.” Molly- Molly is sobbing against Caleb’s neck and Caleb panics at it a little, wriggles an arm free of Molly’s grasp to pat his back and stroke his cheek when he draws away, wiping away the tears tracking his cheeks.

Caleb is… confused. Nott’s door jolts open and she’s in the hall glowing gold, crossbow up, she points at Molly and Caleb before noticing.  
The other doors are opening, too, Fjord coming into the hall already coalescing ice crystals in the air.

“What’s going on?” Jester yawns, Cali’s hand in her own, the half-dragon appears to be falling asleep where she stands.

“Caleb wasn’t in bed.” Molly sighs softly, “I thought he’d run away again.”

“Why would he run away?” Jester voices Caleb’s question without the need to read his mind, “What’s wrong with us?”

“Remember the last time?” Molly frowns, “With the Solancythys?”

Caleb colours in embarrassment and guilt. He had been so adamant that he would avoid telling Molly the truth that he’d just left, and look where that had gotten him.  
Caleb taps Molly until he looks back to him, cups his cheek, and kisses him hard on the mouth.

“Well, he’s still here. So why the fuss?” Jester pouts, Caleb knows she likes her sleep.

“I’m sorry.” Molly sounds so shamed, so hurt, Caleb aches, “I- I worry.”

“Nah.” Beau chips, she always sounds so alert, “I’d’ve done the same, I don’t wanna wake up in th’ mornin’ to find myself a dead Caleb on the stairs. Glad y’ care so much, Molly. It’s what he deserves.”

She shifts quickly to come to Caleb’s side and gives him a quick, one-armed hug.

“But you know. He’s safe. It’s cool. Back to bed, before Cali falls asleep on her feet.”

There’s unanimous murmured agreement, and the girls shuffle their way back to bed. Molly tugs Caleb to follow, but Caleb’s eyes are on Fjord, still hovering in his doorway.  
He signs to Molly for a minute, and Molly’s eyes follow his, flashing to Fjord for a moment before he nods, kisses Caleb’s cheek,

“Don’t be long, darling.”

And shuffles back to the bedroom, picking his scimitar from the floor along the way.  
Caleb comes to Fjord.  
Fjord shuffles awkwardly in the doorway.

“Hey, uh- Molly?”

Such eloquence. Such grace. Caleb could only ever dream of such a silver tongue.  
He can’t make any of these sarcastic remarks, and he’s pretty sure he’s digesting himself in pure rage.  
Caleb forgets, for a second, he’s never seen Fjord to know any sign,

  _Are you okay?_  
And remembers a moment too late, already looking around Fjord’s room for pen and paper when Fjord shakes his head,

“I’m fine. Don’t know why y’ worried about me.”

Caleb pauses, tilts his head,

_You know sign?_

Is that… a _flush_ on Fjord’s cheeks? It’s hard to tell, with the gradient on his skin, but Caleb is decently sure that, yes, that is in fact flush on Fjord’s cheeks.

“I, uh. Picked it up. Not quite Clay’s level yet, but- I’m tryin’. It seems important, an’ I worry about you, Caleb.”

Caleb scooches in, silent even in movement, and wraps his arms around Fjord’s back, squeezes so tight he hears something click and smiles against Fjord’s shoulder when he feels answering arms around himself.

“I worry about you.” Fjord murmurs, like he’s talking distantly, to himself or a far-off star, and Caleb deigns to ignore it in case it’s some kind of prayer or praise, just keeps his cheek pressed to Fjord’s shoulder over the thin cotton of his shirt. Fjord trails the scent of the sea wherever he walks, but he’s also bearing the telltale signs of stress in the faint scent of sweat and the way his arms around Caleb are clinging tight, his hands spread over as much of Caleb’s back as they can, reassuring himself that Caleb is here.

“Don’t go runnin’ away, Caleb.” Fjord’s voice is deep and reverberating and tinged with something like desperation. “I- uh- we’ve grown attached t’ you, y’know. It wouldn’t be the same without you.”

Caleb just pushes his head to Fjord’s shoulder a little harder and breathes a little louder and lets Fjord press his face into the somewhat disheveled hair at the top of Caleb’s head and stay stock still for a moment, calming his breathing.  
And then slowly, slowly, Fjord and Caleb unravel, step apart, and it drops to Caleb’s hands before his head that he signs, 

_I love you, F._

He could do with assigning them all name signs, rather than just the letters, since Clay and Cali both share a _C_. Nobody else shares a letter, so there’s that, he supposes.  
Fjord clears his throat awkwardly, and when he speaks, it comes at an odd and strained pitch.

“Love you too. Get some sleep, t’ bed before Molly thinks I’ve eaten y’.”

Caleb slips away, and Fjord doesn’t even bother to try and make it to the bed, he slides down where he stands and buries his head in his shaking hands, lets out a breath to match in the darkness.

 

Caleb wakes up with his head on Molly’s chest, fingers running over his hair, and Clay in their bed at his back.  
It feels startlingly _right._

“Morning, darling.” Molly murmurs as he feels Caleb stir, “Feeling okay?”

Caleb squeezes the handful of flesh he has at Molly’s waist in answer and slowly drags himself up.

He looks from Molly, naked and reclined against the pillows like it’s where he’s always belonged. To Clay, curled into his ball but close, close enough that he had been pressed to Caleb’s back when he was laid out over Molly.  
Clay slowly begins to uncurl and smile up, sleepy and unfocused and Caleb creases himself to lean down and kiss him.

“Oh, so we’re at that point now.” Molly hums appreciatively, “Does that mean I can start saying _partners_? Is that okay?”

“I’ve been saying it for a month.” Jester’s voice from the doorway, she’s managed to sneak in on them, beaming with a tray of pancakes in her hands, “It’s easier and better than, you know, _people I live with that I love and some of which I kiss sometimes and-_ ”   
“Your point,” Molly cuts her off, “is gratefully taken. Is everyone _else_ okay with that?”

Jester shrugs,

“Every time I’ve brought it up they seem relaxed.”

“You never asked me.” Molly points out, “Or Caleb.”

Jester pauses for a second, her smile falters to partially concern,

“I should have, shouldn’t I?”

“Yes, it’s generally the right thing to do. I don’t mind. Caleb?”

Caleb shakes his head, Jester frowns and blinks pink,

“Was that an ‘I don’t mind’ or a ‘Please don’t,’ Caleb?”

_I like it._   
  
Caleb’s words rattle behind Jester’s eyes, and she grins all bright and excited and finally comes over to hand Caleb the tray of pancakes.

“Good. So do I! I’ll see you later.” She pats his arm, leaves the tray, and trundles away, presumably to feed the others.

 

 

 

It’s closing in on two weeks later that Molly piles them all into a hooded cart and drives them all up toward Atrux for The Day of the Wind celebrations.

“I heard that Jimmy is there this year!” He tells Jester excitedly, leaning through the curtain of fabric to keep an eye on the scenery. Fjord drives the horses onward in the front, Jester leans against Molly’s side.

“ _The_ Jimmy? The actual _Hero of Wind_?” Jester’s gasp comes with an incredulous awe, and Molly nods hard though she can’t see it.

They’ve set off early enough that they should reach Atrux by midnight, Molly has already preemptively reserved them a couple of rooms at a decent inn, to pay when he arrives, nobody would trust money to the mail system.

“ _The_ Hero.” Molly affirms, “And where she goes, Rula is rarely far behind.”

“Do you think Elvanlice will be there?”

Molly shrugs, his grin doesn’t falter,

“They might _all_ be there. Are you ready to meet a God?”

“Demigod.” Jester corrects, “There’s a distinction.”

“Demigod.” Molly accedes, “But- are you?”

Jester grins, invisible to Molly, he feels her shrug though,

“Who says it’s my first time?”

 

They pull over near midday to pause for lunch, Caleb climbs up front with Fjord for the remainder of the journey, and a few hours into early evening sees Caleb falling asleep against Fjord’s shoulder, lulled by the scent of seawater and the gentle bumping of the cart.

He wakes in Atrux, the city of the eternal sun, to Fjord scooping him up. Clay murmurs something or other that Caleb is too sleepy to hear, there’s the sound of the cart trundling away, and Caleb begins to wriggle as they come into the tavern section of the inn they’re staying in- the Celerity.  
The scene here is loud and excited, there’s a trio of bards playing jaunty tunes in the corner, and Caleb is wide awake in seconds. Fjord sets him down and apologises, Caleb laughs at him breathily and pats his cheek.

“We’ll check in first, check out the nightlife second.” Molly tells them fluidly, leans across the desk and waves to get attention.

The bartender, innkeeper, and owner of the establishment is a half-dragon, with black scales and one bright violet eye, enthusiastic and beaming at them. Molly pays for their rooms, collects their keys, and they head up,

“How many rooms did y’ get, Molly?” Beau asks, and Molly grins a little wider,

“Two.”

“ _Two_ , for ten of us?”

“Two double beds, one single in each room.” Molly clarifies, “Nott is staying with me and the boys, you’re in another room.” and hands Beau her key. She stares at it for a second.

“See you in ten.” and they stop at the door to the girls’ room, leaving Molly, Caleb, Fjord, and Nott to push onward.

 

Molly flops longways across one of the double beds as he gets in.

“I’m claiming this for me and Clay.”

“ _Molly_.” Fjord warns, and Caleb rolls his eyes at his partner. Nott scrambles to sit on the single.

_What about me?_ Caleb signs, though he already knows the answer, and Nott voices the question.

“Sleep with Fjord.” Molly’s voice is so casual, to anyone else it may be _confusing_ , just why Fjord chokes on air, and Caleb tries to laugh so hard he does the same.

Caleb looks to Fjord for his approval and receives half a shrug and a deep flush, and both of those are signs only an idiot could miss.

Speaking of signs,

_It’s fine._

Fjord’s hand move away from Molly’s vision, but Caleb catches it and nods, just a little.

 

They meet up with Clay and the girls in the tavern below not ten minutes later, most of them changed from travel wear and without their packs. Clay and Jester, as the designated sober ones, are handed the keys to their respective rooms for safekeeping.

And then they hit the town.

And Caleb doesn’t remember a lot of it, if he’s honest. There’s fireworks and a stage and a golden dragonborn selling various magical items, he knows, he remembers buying one but not what it does. The dragonborn’s name is Pepper.  
Pepper sells them some other, less magical items. And Caleb remembers even less after that.

In fact, past Molly rolling and lighting up, past Molly pressing it to his lips and kissing his cheek as he takes a drag, Caleb remembers nothing at all.

 

“Fuck.” Molly groans from the next bed over. Morning sunlight fills the room even through the pulled curtains, “My _head_.”

Clay’s chuckle reaches Caleb’s ear, the soft sound of hair being mussed.

Caleb groans internally and presses closer to Fjord, too pained to begin to consider why he’s woken up entwined with the Water Mage the way he usually would wake with Molly. One of Fjord’s wide hands is splayed over the small of his back.

“I need to go to the tattoo parlor today.” Molly moans, there’s the sound of him sitting up, “This is the _worst_ hangover I’ve ever had.”

“Here.” Nott’s voice, and the padding noise of her crossing the carpeted floor, the screw of her flask.

“Hair of the dog?” Molly asks cheerily, and Nott gives a brief laugh,

“Water. If you have some of that in you, I can…”

Caleb assumes that Nott sets her hand to Molly and pools her healing into him. She’s always held up against the booze better than the rest of them.  
Caleb lifts his head finally from its place against Fjord’s shoulder, pushes himself up on his elbow to look around and ignores the way Fjord whines.

“Caleb… no… warm…”

He’s pulled back down into Fjord’s arms and huffs his resignation, meets a chuckle from Molly. Caleb settles into Fjord’s grip, rests his chin back on Fjord’s shoulder and lets the world go on.  
Molly leaves fifteen minutes later, takes Beau with him when he goes. He pauses by Caleb’s bed to lean over and kiss his boyfriend’s temple.

“See you later, darling.”

And then he’s gone.

 

Later, Caleb convinces the others that he can go about alone. Just a quick wander around, see the sights, scout the area. He’ll be fine.

They let him go.

Caleb was wrong.   
There’s still a day before the main festival, but there’s already intro acts on the stage, the qualifiers for the skate competition ongoing, the thrum of magic as a group of Sound Mages amplify the volume of the music across the crowds.

There’s so many crowds.

Caleb keeps bumping people and flinching and signing his apologies, trying his damndest to make his way back to the Celerity Inn, getting turned around as he moves. He only seems to be moving deeper.  
He bumps, at one point, damn near directly into a hell-touched that appears to be late generations, with mostly human-coloured skin, a tinge of unnatural orange, and gold eyes.

Caleb signs the word _sorry_ to them, hands shaking, and they look him up and down _very_ briefly before their hand darts out and they press their fingertips to his wrist lightly.  
There’s a flash of light, and Caleb screws his eyes shut.

He opens them again to a dim alleyway, and the hell-touched at the edge peering out. They turn over their shoulder and see him, pressed into a wall. 

_Are you okay?_

Oh. Okay. So the hell-touched knows sign.

Good.

That’s good.

_Many people, I do not do good._

The hell-touched gives him a sympathetic smile.

_Same as me. Are you alone?_

They move in from the edge a little, Caleb watches their thick braid drop behind them, their horns curl around their head like a circlet.

_I have friends. Sleep rooms._

They nod at Caleb’s reply, he spells out the name of the inn, and they fall into a somewhat awkward, stalled conversation about their respective significant others, and how they share two key traits- flirting, and no concept of gender. Caleb’s new friend teaches him the sign for _non-binary_ , a process that takes a solid two minutes.  
Caleb doesn’t learn the hell-touched’s name, but by the time they head into the street and split, he feels a sense of comfort from them. For someone to step in and- presumably- teleport the both of them out of their situation, it must have taken a lot of strength.

He heads back to the Celerity with his spirit soothed somewhat by the exchange.

 

Molly is there when he comes in, comes up and kisses him immediately, beaming at him, new peacock feathers curling up his face and neck.

Caleb scrambles for a pen and paper.

_My Mollymauk._

He shows Molly the scrawl, and Molly’s smile grows impossibly wider.

“Your Mollymauk.” He affirms, and Caleb kisses him.

 

They go out that night, too, and drink until one of them- Beau- is violently sick.

And then some more.

No more of whatever drug that Pepper had given them, though there seems to be a lot of it around, they walk through thick white clouds and Caleb holds Molly’s hand and halfway through the night on a street full of food stalls, he points excitedly at a familiar figure.

He frees his hand from Molly to sign,

_The one that helped me_.

It’s Fjord that catches it, follows his eyes and finger and Clay does the same.

“Shit.” Clay says softly, tone reverent and shocking.

“Fuck.” Fjord agrees in a similar voice.

_What?_ Caleb signs until someone sees, but he doesn’t need a reply.

It’s the hell-born from earlier, the one that could sign. He’s wearing a rich velvet cloak in black, now, holding the hand of another hell-born with darker, more vivid red skin, gold-tipped horns, and glittering gold eyeshadow. And they, Caleb sees, are wearing an identical black velvet cloak. They turn, their backs to Caleb in the same instant Clay’s eyes come to Caleb’s face.

The hell-born who had rescued Caleb earlier in the day has a green candle in a circle, embroidered on the back of his cape. His partner has a pink dagger, pointed upright, in a circle, and Caleb knows these symbols.

“You got fuckin’ _yanked_ by a _demigod_?” Beau’s in his ear and yeah, Caleb’s a little drunk but he grins and pulls Molly along anyway, drags him- and subsequently the others- up along to the two hell-born, sharing quick, one-handed signs.

The one with the dagger- Saake, Hero of Spirit and Sacrifice- is glowing faintly with pink light, the same as Jester does when she reads Caleb’s thoughts. They make short comments, when their hands stall.  
Caleb’s saviour from earlier- Abel, Hero of Earth- turns quickly when he sees shapes coming toward him from the corner of his eye, glowing up along his free hand and sputtering into dimming and smiling when he sees Caleb, and he waves brightly.   
Saake leans in to murmur, and Abel must tell them who Caleb is, because _they_ straighten up and beam, too.

They draw within shouting distance, and Saake gives them one, wide wave.

“Salutations! Abel never caught your name, friend.” they greet, and Caleb looks to Molly expectantly. Molly is flushed and wide-eyed, distracted, so Fjord answers for them,

“Yeah, uh- salutations? This is Caleb,” he leans over a little as they stop to pat Caleb’s shoulder, “I hear y’ rescued him earlier.”

Saake's eye glow flickers a little brighter momentarily, and they pause to kiss Abel’s horn.

“Rescued is a strong word.” They tell Fjord, leaning a little on their boyfriend, though they offer no replacement.  
  
Fjord nods apologetically, and both Caleb and Abel shake their hands free to have a conversation.  
Molly opens his mouth to start a conversation with Saake, and then finds himself buffeted out of the way.

“ _Saake!_ ” Jester’s exclamation comes as a gasp, her hands clapped to her cheeks and eyes wide. Saake looks her over, for a moment, and then gives a brief and bubbling laugh,   
  
“Why, miss Lavorre! We meet at last.”   
  
Jester turns to Molly, he swears he can see the stars in her eyes,   
  
“ _It’s Saake._ ”

“The one and only.” Saake sweeps themself into a bow, punctuated by a soft smack to the back of their head from Abel. Caleb catches the edge of the exchange,

 

_Behave, we aren’t special._

 

_We are quite literally divine._

 

And Saake turns back to Jester.  
The group, now accompanied by the two demigods, wander along the streets drinking, smoking, talking, and all-around having a good time.

 

 

“And then I just sort of knew how to read minds! Isn’t that cool? And- and Saake taught me how to bring people back to life, too, that needs a teacher-”

“Jester.”

“And I had this little voice in my head telling me where to put my power and how to concentrate it.”

“ _Jester_.” Fjord says, a little more forcefully, and Jester stops mid-sentence,

“Yes?”

“I love you. Really. I do. But if y’ could get on takin’ away my headache instead o’ amplifyin’ it, I’d love y’ a whole lot more.”

Jester gives a faux-disapproving sigh before she leans down to him on the bed, one arm slung across his eyes, and kisses him in a brief blinding flash of hot pink.

“Better?” She asks sweetly as she straightens, and Fjord tentatively lifts his arm from his eyes, flushed and smiling a little, catches her eye.

“Yeah. Much.”

“Good, because Molly, Clay, Abel, and Saake are all waiting downstairs. Clay took the girls to the bath house.”

“Great.” Fjord sits, “Fuckin’ fantastic.”

“Don’t be sarcastic, Fjord.” She pats his cheek gently, “I’ll see you soon.”

And downstairs she darts.

 

The music festival is already in full swing when they regroup and move out toward the stage, Saake and Abel to either side of them, creating a path through the crowds as they move.  
Saake guides them into an alley and spills a handful of apologies, looking around the group,

“This will take a few trips.”

His hands dart out, one presses to Jester’s wrist, the other lands on Keg’s shoulder, a flash of pink and he’s gone.  
Caleb turns to Abel with worried signs already dropping from his hands, there’s another flash of pink, and Saake returns alone.  
Abel leans out next, catches Fjord and Caleb and there’s the familiar green flash of teleportation. When Caleb opens his eyes again, he appears to be in a little tent, a table of snacks out on the side, and Abel pauses to hand Caleb and Fjord two identical necklaces with his symbol, and then he disappears again.

“Did we- uh- did we just get backstage passes?” Fjord holds the necklace up, the colour inlay in the metal glinting in the dim sunlight from outside. Caleb presses his face into his palm and smiles.

“Hey, lemme get that for ya.”

Another, unfamiliar voice, the necklace is pulled gently from Caleb’s hand and fastened around his neck before he can even remove his palm from over his eyes. Fjord gets a similar treatment, from a large, grey-skinned woman with a long braid, a set of purple bagpipes strapped to her back.

Jester peeks out from behind her, grinning through the pink flash of Saake delivering Clay and Cali to the tent.

“Caleb, Fjord, this is Jimmy!”

“Caleb, huh? Yeah, Abel’s been speakin’ about you non-stop since yesterday. What’d you do? Give him a candle?”

She follows it with a laugh as she takes herself a step back from Fjord,

“We don’t let him have candles anymore, his house is so fucking dark now.”

Clay eases up beside Fjord, and Caleb turns too, to fasten his necklace around his neck.

“So this is a backstage pass?” Fjord directs his question to Jimmy. Abel delivers Yasha and Beau.

Jimmy shrugs,

“Pretty much. You’ve got an in with the heroes, you’re _basically_ groupies now.”

“We’re _groupies_ for _demigods_.” Jester waves her hand excitedly, “How _cool_ is that?”

“And I was dead not two months ago.” Molly’s voice is a gift to Caleb’s ears and he turns from Clay to his partner, takes Molly’s face in his palms and kisses him hard.

“This is becoming a repeat greeting.” Molly half-laughs against Caleb’s mouth, “I’m not complaining, darling, do that as _much_ as you like.”

 

They end up lounging around the tent with Jimmy, Abel, Saake, and later, Rula.

Rula, who comes in with a satchel bag, and a brown bottle that Caleb recognises as whiskey clutched in her hand, her own flask symbol embroidered in blue around the cuffs of her overcoat. She comes first to Jimmy and leans up on her tiptoes to kiss her wife, hands off something in the satchel and rolls her eyes at Jimmy’s delighted grin, then heads off to join the group and the other demigods in their little patch of soft grass and flowers.

“This is pretty.” Rula taps one of the flowers as she sits next to Abel, he turns to sign to her and she stops him mid-sentence to take hold of his chin and rub at some dirt on his face in a _very_ motherly fashion. It’s somewhat endearing, and Molly leans in toward Caleb to kiss his hair.

“Isn’t that sweet?” Caleb hears, quiet beside his ear, and nods marginally in return.

“Ah, Rula- don’t suppose there’s booze to share?” Molly leans forward with a winning smile, and Rula eyes him almost warily.

Abel snaps his fingers in front of her eyes, and Clay catches it even if nobody else does,

_These are the friends from the crowd_.

 

_You brought them here? Abel._

 

_They’re nice! They grow flowers! The blue one is very cool._

 

There’s a pause.

 

_Literally, under_ \- and a symbol that Clay doesn’t recognise. Most likely a name sign.

Rula sighs heavily, and pulls a bottle from her satchel, sets it down in the middle of the group, and Abel produces a set of flagons a few moments after, passing them to Saake and letting his partner set them down. Molly pours himself a drink, it seems to be some kind of wine, and lifts it gratefully to Rula before he sits back.

Jimmy joins them a few minutes later, when the sound of music thickens in the air and she’s rolled and lit up something that seems very similar to Pepper’s drugs the other night.

“D’you want in?” she offers the closest person as she sits with them, Yasha, and Yasha gives a little shrug. So Jimmy passes. And it goes around.

 

The light fades, and Nott finds herself going toe-to-toe with Rula in a drinking contest.

 

“I wouldn’t recommend it.” It’s Beau to comment to Rula, raising an eyebrow over Nott’s fierce challenge, “We call her _the bottomless pit_.”

Rula eyes Nott’s tiny form and a smile edges at her lips,

“I’m sure I can take it. Bring it on- drink of choice?”

“Whiskey.” Nott answers without hesitation, and Rula laughs a little as she pours from her own personal flask. She and Nott raise their flagons, tap them together lightly, and begin to chug.

Rula wins the first round easily, Nott choking a little on the too-big rim but she powers through, swipes the back of her hand across her mouth.

“You got this, Nott!” Molly calls for Caleb, and Nott grins as Rula refills, Beau counts down, and they tip it back.

It’s good whiskey, it burns like fuck, and Rula finishes before Nott again, beginning to look just a little rough around the edges, Nott’s grin steady. She’s pacing herself. She just hopes it’s not too much.

Rula refills, and Jester leans in to start a chant,

“Nott! Nott! Nott!” She pats her hands on her own thighs, and Jimmy grins at her wife through curls of smoke, mouthing her name. Molly and Cali join in with Jester, Saake calls for Rula, they tip down their next drink and this time _Rula_ is the one to choke, Nott’s pacing finally, finally paying off. The burn of the whiskey is searing Rula’s throat, there’s noise all around them and she glares as she refills and they move straight back to chugging- and Nott wins again.

“Even ground.” Beau proclaims, taking a drag offered to her by Keg and turning back to Rula finishing the refills, “Let’s go.”

Rula tries to follow Nott’s guide this time. Tries to pace herself. But the first few rounds have been too rough on her and she gets halfway through before she feels herself fading, drops her flagon,

“Fuck.”

And slumps back, caught by Abel and arranged quickly into a safe sleeping position should she throw up.

“Good job she can’t die.” Saake’s eyebrows reach their hairline, they make a grabby hand for the newest roll and take their drag, Abel is busy settling Rula carefully.

Molly gives a soft laugh and pulls himself to his feet,

“This has been _wonderful_ ,” he tells them, “But we should probably be heading back. I have another session at the tattoo place tomorrow, and I can _already_ tell my head is going to be fucked.”

“Aw, but we were getting along so well!” Saake draws to their feet and holds out a hand to Molly, who shakes hard.

“Oh, of course, but I’m sure you understand the hangover headache feel.”

“Rula does.” Jimmy grins at them all, “Go on. Nice to meet you.”

“And you.” Molly inclines his head, the others stand, and they begin a series of quick farewell hugs and handshakes, and then they spill out into the charged night air, the music of the festival still loud in the air, and Caleb is so drunk, so high that everything, everything just seems so bright and perfect and he pats at Fjord as they walk, one arm looped through Molly’s to keep him steady, Fjord turns.

“Y’alright, Caleb?” Fjord’s eyes are rimmed red from the drugs and unfocused from the alcohol and he’s smiling overtop a thin layer of concern, Caleb just beams at him, bright,

 

_Kiss_?

 

He makes the question mark shape with his hands, and Fjord blinks at him. And then at Molly, and Clay.  
“You sure?”

Caleb nods, and Fjord coughs for Molly’s attention,

“Hey, Moll, uh. ‘S’it cool if I kiss your boyfriend?”

Molly looks over wth a grin,

“Oh, please. Feel free.”

And so Fjord does, halting the group in the middle of the street to kiss Caleb as sweetly as he can with the reduced motor control.

 

How do you fit four reasonably long, large people on one double bed?  
With some difficulty, apparently, as Caleb and his partners find when they wake in an overlapping layered pile of limbs and squished faces.  
And they all are _thoroughly_ pleased with the situation.

 

They spend the day resting, eating, recovering from the three-night bender and bonding quietly over the bacon and the poor quality of the tea, Molly disappears to get the rest of his tattoo choices re-added to his body. He’s still got the snake and the flowers to go, but the peacock, pyramid, and sun-moon combo are in their rightful places on his body when he comes back and takes a bed to himself to avoid the pain of multi-body pile up.

 They head home the following day happy and warm and layered together in the back of the cart, fingers running through hair.

  


 

 

“Wa-ake _up_ , Molly!” Jester trills, hops on the bed and bounces over Molly. It’s been two weeks since The Day of the Wind, and Caleb sits up beside Molly grinning, no voice of his own to do just this, “It’s harvest day!”

Molly sits up too, nearly headbutts Jester with the speed of it. He’s been looking forward to this since they arrived, his own handmade sweater for Caleb sitting lumpy in a little box under the bed.  
Caleb springs out of bed- they’re without Clay or Fjord this morning, they take occasionally to their own beds and leave Caleb and Molly to their own devices. Their own devices usually means hours of soft touches and kissing and back and forths where the whole world comes to a stop around them. Caleb’s heart hurts with how much he loves Molly.

There’s a wild mess of clothes as they all change into ratty, older sets they dont mind ruining, and they take to the fields to help.

Jester, Cali, and Clay end up helping to harvest the squashes, Yasha, Fjord and Caleb are set to cutting the wheat and barley, Beau and Molly tasked with binding it, Nott and Keg dart between the various groups, switching their help and services. Molly catches sight of Caleb a distance from him and Beau, pausing to gesture to Fjord and covering his mouth when he laughs, his shoulders shaking with amusement and the force of it. The autumn sunlight paints him in gold, the way Molly feels he always should have been, perfect and untouchable, such as an angel. He watches Caleb as he binds, winds the string around the stalks.

Caleb’s freckles are out in full, Molly has spent many an evening tracing constellations on Caleb’s skin, mapping the lines between his chosen stars with soft kisses and brushing touches.

He’s getting better, eating more, drinking more water, learning again how to trust and believe that life is more than he’s been pinprick-focused on for years, and with no access to the things he had once wanted to be, he’s let it slip from his fingers the way a man ending his life might have. But Molly is here, holding his hand and keeping him grounded, feet on the floor and head in the clouds every time Molly presses their lips together and cups his cheek.

Molly darts out to gather another bundle, crosses quick to Caleb to kiss him, too, and when they get to the end of the work day and meet in the town for the equinox celebrations, Molly has a series of gifts in his bag.

 

There’s another bonfire, sweet treats and snacks and bards playing folk songs, songs of the bountiful harvest and fighting through the winter as a community, Jester pulls Fjord up to dance with her and there’s laughter and joy.

 

Molly goes to Yasha first.

 

“Yasha?”

She’s sitting by herself, watching Beau and Cali with affection, Keg is elsewhere locked in a drinking contest and Molly doesn’t need to ask. He collapses against her into a cuddle and she pulls him in.

She’s pleasantly, calmingly cool, the way she always has been, exactly the right temperature and smelling of charred wood in a rainstorm, lightning-struck trees and the burning sap. She strokes circles against his back.

“It’s been a while since you did this.” She murmurs softly, “Is everything okay?”

“I know it’s been a while. I love you, you know that, right?”

“Of course I know.” She sounds shocked he’d even suggest that she didn’t, “I love you, too. We’ve been together for so long, how could I not?”

Molly eases a hand into his pocket for a box, decorated prettily with a nice little ribbon, and produces it to give her.

She stares, for a few seconds.

“This is for me?”

“It’s customary, right?” He says softly, “To make things?”

“It is.” She murmurs, and takes it from him, pulls gently at the ribbon and takes it off. She pauses to braid it into a section of hair, ties it off before she opens the box.

Molly has spent a long time on this, and he hasn’t worked alone, but it means importance anyway.

He’s carved a chunk of rainbow moonstone into the shape of a leaf, added even the tiny vein details, attached it to a necklace for her.

“It’s beautiful.” She tells him softly, and he leans over, lays a hand atop hers on the moonstone and turns it,

“It has a screw cap,” he informs her quietly, “You can fill it with water, so you can put a flower in it, like a tiny vase. It wasn’t easy to hollow out, but Nott…”

“She’s good at the little jobs.” Yasha smiles, and Molly chuckles softly,

“Yeah. I’ve made her a gun. And by made, I mean I bought one, and then decorated it to be fancy, because I wouldn’t trust myself to make one and not blow her up. I love her too much for that.”

“You’re getting better at that word.” Yasha smiles, “ _Love_. Caleb has been good for you.”

Molly shrugs,

“I’ve died twice. Life is far too short not to tell the people I love that they mean everything to me. You mean everything to me, Yasha.”

She curls an arm around his shoulders again, kisses the top of his head.

“Before you go to the others, would you put the necklace on me?”

He does as he’s bidden, fiddles with the clasp at the back of her neck until it’s closed and pats her shoulder, strokes her hair.

“Love you.” He tells her, and kisses the top of her head.

“Love you too.”

He moves on.

 

His second stop is Beau, and he really, really had considered just getting her a punch in the face.

“Fucker.” He greets her with a grin as she stumbles back from the packed earth with Cali, “Walk with me?”

She eyes him, but comes, she doesn’t even ask why and she’d pretend that she hates and doesn’t trust him but they all know far better.

“Jester told me you gave your bracelets to beggar kids, before you met up with us.” He says, doesn’t give her an edgeways opportunity to interrupt him, “She said they were jade. I don’t think jade really fits you, so I did, something different. Here-” and hands her a long, thin box that she eyes dubiously.

“What’s this?”

“Open the fucking box, Beau.”

She does. It looks, on first inspection, to be two matching bracelets of silver. When Beau lifts one, though, she finds a series of little chains.

“What the fuck.”

“Here.” Molly guides them to sitting, and takes the one she’s holding from her, “Give me your hand. This is your left.”

She holds her left hand out to him, and he takes the chains carefully. There’s five little loops, he slips each one over her fingers and straightens them so the links lie flat, then fastens the bracelet section into place. Set at the back of her wrist, in a spiral of silver wire, is a perfectly round, polished stone of aquamarine.

“You made this?” Beau marvels, and Molly chuckles,

“I’m good with chains, on account of…” He shakes his head a little, and the smattering of a jewelery collection he has jingles faintly, “It wasn’t too much trouble. So here, each of these-” he puts his fingertips to four ports around the wristband of the contraption, “-can hold a mana crystal. And if you turn the socket around like this,” he rolls his thumb across one, and it turns, the slot giving way to solid metal, “Then it’ll power the chains. You can hit people with Keg’s gravity manipulation, or Fjord’s flash-freeze.”

“Wait.” Beau looks up as Molly starts to fit the other one to her right hand, “You’re telling me this shit lets me punch _ghosts_?”

“It lets you punch ghosts.” Molly affirms, and Beau hoots into the air.

“If I get some crystals in it tonight, can I try it out on you?”

She really doesn’t beat around the bush.

Molly gives a quick laugh. He likes that about her.

“Yeah. Sure. As long as one of the healers is standing by.”

“ _Great_.” She stands up, fists clenched and grinning and shoulders pulled back, “I look forward to it.”

She shuffles off, and Molly sighs. Two down, seven more to go.

 

“Keg.” this one’ll be easy, Molly reckons. She turns, cigarette in mouth, to squint at him.

“Uh. Hey. ‘S’up?”

“Got you this.” He holds out a box to her and she takes it, squinting harder,

“I’ve heard about your gift rampage.”

“You’ll hate it.” He warns with a bright grin, and Keg gives a rough chuckle,

“I’m sure. Right.” And tears the box in half. _Hot damn._   
  
A salt shaker falls out into her hand.

“You’re right.” She says, fighting to keep the sage edge to her voice, “I hate it.”

“Well, everyone is getting their stones. I felt it was only right you get yours.”

“This is a stone?” she wiggles the shaker, and Molly’s grin widens,

“Halite. Rock salt. Fitting, right?”

Keg just sighs at him in reply, and he cackles.

“No, I uh, I got this. You can wear it as a charm, or put it on your weapon, or throw it. Either way.”  
He pulls something from his pocket, a little glass bauble in a spiral of metal, a scattering of various colours of rock salt inside. The whole thing is attached to a ribbon, long enough to be a bracelet at a stretch. She takes it from him tentatively.

“It won’t blow up?”

“It just looks pretty.” He tells her sagely, “I didn’t think you’d appreciate any changes to your weapons.”

“This is, uh. Thanks. Good yeah. Yeah.”

“I’ll leave you to stew in your own awkwardness.” He grins for her, and kisses the shaved part of her head as he passes on toward his next victim.

 

He chooses Nott next. Catches her as she’s darting past the alleyway he’s stood in smoking, and collars her to pull.She chokes briefly, but comes at the first flash of lavender skin, settles across from him.

“Did you _need to,_ Molly?”

“Yes.” He lies, and holds out her box. This one, specifically, is wrapped in a pretty sheet of thin metal, crafted like paper, he’d gone through great lengths for it but it’s shiny. Nott likes shiny. And it’s tied with a pretty ribbon sewed with a button with a big, glass crystal in the middle.  
Nott’s eyes are already wide.

“Molly…” she breathes, and Molly chuckles,

“The real gift is inside, darling.” he tells her softly, and Nott unwraps it carefully, avoiding tearing the metallic paper or the ribbon, she folds and tucks those things into her pocket. She eases, slowly, the lid off of he box and gasps at the sight, pulling the gun from the box and inspecting it.

It’s a six-chamber revolver, silver with a black stained mahogany grip. Set into the centre of the grip, laud in to be flat and comfortable in the hand, is a gemstone. It’s a lapis lazuli; originally, Molly had thought to use bloodstone, with the green and the red flecks, but had changed his mind. There are tiny, decorative engravings all over the gun, a floral pattern on the grip and the metal of the barrell and the chamber, all inlaid with gold to show it off.

“There’s another clip of bullets, too.” Molly tells her, “In the box. Six explosive, six with crystal slots- though guns tend to destroy crystals, so keep that one in mind.”

Nott is tearing up, hands shaking over the gun, she sobs a little.

“What do I owe you? What do you want for this?”

Molly shrugs,

“It’s a gift, Nott. All I want is you to be happy.”

She sets the gun back in the box carefully, sets it aside, and then jumps at Molly. He catches her, pulls her into a hug and lets her sob into him, spitting her thanks over and over and over.

 

Next, Molly grabs Clay, setting up his suspension system to hold his teapot in the fire.

“Hey.” Clay turns from his work and kisses him briefly, then moves back, tilting a little sachet of tea into the pot.

“I have something for you.” Molly says softly, a hand to Clay’s back and the other around the box holding the gift. Clay hums for pause whilst he stirs, and then turns his attention to Molly,

“A gift?”  
  
Molly holds the box out and Clay takes it. Molly is always shocked by just how gentle Clay is, despite his size, soft and smooth and careful. He loves him.

Clay opens it with precision, takes care not to rip the box, and withdraws the little tea strainer from within.

“I thought it might be useful, when you’re making tea just for yourself.” Molly says, awkward now. It had been a pain in the ass to put this together, finding the right metal and shaping it, he’d had a professional _blacksmith_ help him.

Clay inspects it. It has the little orb at the end with the metal netting, the tea ingredients go in there and it snaps closed. At the handle, there’s a gemstone embedded, and a trail of the same gemstone but smaller on a string from the end of the handle.

“Moss agate.” Molly tells Clay when he runs the furred paf og a thumb over the larger one in the handle, “I thought- moss. You-? Yeah.”

Clay chuckles at his sutters, leans in, and kisses the top of his head.

“This is very good. I like this a lot.” Clay tells him honestly, “Thank you.”

Molly stays there with him until his tea boils, held warm against Caduceus’ chest, breathing the scent of incense and flowers and a hint of the earth.  
And then he moves on.  
Five down.  
Four to go.

 

He gets Jester and Cali together, their gifts were made to match anyway, and he beams as he produces two little boxes from a pocket either side and offers one to either of them. Cali’s has a _C_ in green on the top, Jester’s has _J_ in pink, and they both peek into the boxes with murmurs of surprise and confusion and anticipation.  
  
Jester lets out an excited trill and withdraws hers first. It’s a set of three little daggers, carved out of rhodochrosite, on a chain necklace designed to settle just under her collarbone, across her clavicle.  
Cali withdraws hers to a similar pattern, with shields, as opposed to the daggers. Her gemstone is alexandrite, and Molly takes her hand and draws her over by the fire, away from the globule of magical light. He points out the way that the colours in the gemstone change, explains that it happens in all kinds of light, and Cali beams with unrestrained excitement. She throws her arms around Molly’s neck and he hugs her back, she’s slight and light under his arms ad he spins with her to test it, her curtain of dark hair rippling through the night air behind them as they twirl.

Cali’s smile alone is worth all of the effort it took to make the gifts, he thinks, but Jester’s is the kicker. The way she looks at them, when they stop, and Molly sets Cali down, it makes him ache in salt-sweet ways.

He leaves them to fasten the necklaces around one another’s necks, and moves on.

 

He picks Fjord second to last, leaves Caleb to his final, though he finds them both together and pulls Fjord aside.

“Hey.” Molly says and pauses to stand on his tiptoes, kisses the corner of Fjord’s mouth, “I made you something. For the equinox. I mean- I really more _modified_ it, I’m not good enough to- just. Here.”

Molly holds out the flat little box, and Fjord stares at him silently, confused as he opens it.

Inside, there’s a gold case, it looks like a pocket watch, but in the top there’s a gem. Carved and polished into a heart shape, set into the gold metal, Molly smiles down at it, back up at Fjord.

“Ocean Jasper.” he tells him gently, “I thought it was fitting.”

Fjord smiles, shakes his head affectionately, and carefully opens the case.

It’s a compass. But Fjord can tell that it isn’t pointing north, rather, it’s straight between him and Molly, pointing more west than anything.

“Uh, Molly,” Fjord shifts awkwardly, “I love it. A lot. But- it’s broken.”

“It doesn’t point north.” Molly corrects, “It points home.”

“But the house is, uh- it’s that way.” He points, and _that way_ is north. Molly’s grin spreads.

“It doesn’t point to the house. It’s mentally attuned, arcane power, it points to whatever you consider home.”

Experimentally, Molly takes a step to the side, watches Fjord’s face as the compass follows him, points, directly to Molly. Fjord stares. Shocked.

“Oh.”

But hasn’t it always been Molly to soothe him just by being? Hasn’t it always been Molly at his side to teach him secrets he can learn nowhere else, unquestioning as to why he wants them, just going along with it. Molly in his bed on cold winter nights, Molly pressing Caleb toward him, Molly pressing him toward Caleb, Molly, Molly, Molly?

Fjord closes the compass gently and steps in to kiss Molly. He finds a chuckle pressed against his lips in reply, and smiles into it.

“Thank you.” Fjord says, voice rough and quiet, and Molly’s grin widens. He says nothing, and slips away to his last victim.

 

Caleb.

 

He sits beside him and puts an arm around his shoulders, kisses the hair of the sleepy man he calls his heart and smiles a stupid, lovestruck smile when Caleb nuzzles into the curve of his jaw and kisses there.

“We’re going home soon.” Molly promises, “But I have a couple of things for you.”

He grabs for his bag and drags it closer.  
He pulls the lumpy little sweater out and hands it over first, grinning as Caleb unfurls it.

“I had Pepper enchant it, too.” He says softly, as Caleb beams at the little ginger tabby pattern knitted into the sweater, “It has a matching component, I’ll give you it in a minute. Once you’ve accustomed to both, as long as you have one piece on and both are intact, the enchantment holds.”

Caleb scrambles his way into the sweater and turns to kiss Molly over, and over, mouthing his thanks against Molly’s lips whenever he pauses. Molly sees the constellation of freckles between Caleb’s eyes, across his cheeks, and pauses to kiss all across the bridge of his nose and cheeks and his lips, anywhere he can reach, waiting for the rush of love to fade so he can function again.  
When they split apart, Molly pulls the box from his pocket. His last box of the evening.

“It doesn’t have to mean anything you don’t want it to mean.” He warns before he hands it over, “Just know I’m up for anything you want.”

And Caleb takes the box.  
And opens it.  
And his mouth drops open in a wide O as he withdraws the little gold coil ring, with a sunstone set in the centre, and two little amber stones on the top and bottom coil.

“That’s the other component, too.” Molly says gently, “Put it on. Take a second.”

_You do it_. Caleb signs to him, and Molly grins brightly,

“It would be my honour, my darling.”  
  
He takes the ring and holds, light,

“Which finger?”

Caleb slips his left hand into Molly’s grip. Molly’s head swims, just a little, as he slips the coil onto Caleb’s ring finger, follows it with a kiss to his fingertips.

“You are my perfection.” Molly tells Caleb, “Take a moment.”

So Caleb closes his eyes and lets himself breathe into the spell, lets himself feel.  
Molly watches the magic of the enchantment coalesce, grinning so hard he thinks he’s started to cry. He can feel the burn at the edge of his vision.

“Caleb, sweetheart,” Molly says gently, when it finishes, “Open your eyes.”

 

From the earth in front of them, as Caleb opens his eyes, Frumpkin mewls softly.

 

Caleb is in tears _immediately_ , he turns to Molly and clings and sobs and Frumpkin jumps up to Molly’s knee to nose against Caleb’s damp cheeks.

No longer a creature of plasma and mist, when Molly sets his hand to this Frumpkin’s ginger tabby back, he feels spine and warmth under his fingers. He’s still a magical cat, but as much flesh and bone as any other, pressing into Caleb’s warmth with worry. And Caleb sobs, wishing desperately that he could talk, because he’ll never be able to let Molly know what this means.

So he does the closest thing, pulls Molly into a kiss and mouths, _I love you, I love you, I love you_ , over and over between presses, digs his fingers so hard into Molly’s hip that he knows he’ll bruise and relishes the sound of shock and delight that Molly gives.

“I love you too, my love, my heart,” Molly tells him, as many words as he can between his mouth being occupied, “I love you too.”

  


They never have to be adventurers again.

Caleb never takes the ring off, even when they marry, he keeps Frumpkin’s ring in place and kisses Molly sweetly.

 

They never have to risk their lives again, spending time at the celebrations with their new demigod friends, and the harvests in the little village come and go easily.

Molly watches Caleb tan in the summer sunlight, turn to copper under the skies and his freckles make their constellations that he traces with his mouth in the depths of the night.

 

Caleb and Clay both grow back into their shapes, no longer pushed for food and love and eating right, Caleb laughs his silence in the autumn harvest sun, the thatches of wheat and barley bound and passed back to be stored whilst Caleb and Fjord cut through it together.

They never have to be alone again, and they never will be.

They’re free.

They can be happy.

 

They’re okay.


End file.
